It’s a blessing born out of a curse.
A tiny Bible with roots in the Sept. 11 terror attacks has spent the last two decades crisscrossing America — uniting strangers both in grief and hope.
Dennis McKenna has loaned out his precious holy book to those in their darkest hours — including Sandy Hook families and victims of the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting — after it landed in his own hands as he searched for survivors at Ground Zero in 2001.
During his quest in the rubble, a police chaplain visiting from California gifted him the small Bible – now dubbed the “9/11 First Responder Bible” – to use for strength and healing during the heart-wrenching search.
“Out of nowhere, a guy with a black jacket and white helmet sat alongside me in the rubble and put his arm around me, at that point I was crying,” McKenna, then an Immigration and Naturalization Service officer in New York, told The Post Tuesday.
“He said, ‘Son, I think you need me right now.’ … and gave me the Bible.”
McKenna spent the better part of the next decade with the Bible inside his vest — “That’s how close I was to it.”
It wasn’t until the 2012 Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting that McKenna decided to temporarily part ways with the Bible and send spiritual healing to those who need it most — to victims and victims’ families of American tragedies.
“When Aurora, Colorado happened, I felt so helpless, that it was just unbelievable,” he recalled of the mass shooting that left 12 dead and more than 70 injured.
The well-worn Bible has since been used at the funerals of eight children killed in Sandy Hook, Connecticut and four teen boys murdered in 2017 in Pennsylvania.
“This Bible is not to convert anyone or change anyone’s beliefs,” McKenna, 69, said. “It’s solely meant to reach out to people mentally and spiritually, to victims and their families.”
The Bible was even blessed by the Pope at Madison Square Garden in 2015, according to CBS12.
“I know it works, because the feedback I get is something else,” said McKenna, who now lives in Jupiter, Fla. “After a tragedy, everybody wants to help in the beginning — but after a week or two, you feel alone. Picking up that Bible, you don’t feel alone.”
Its spiritual prescience isn’t the only calming force to be found within it, McKenna noted – inside the Bible are testimonies from surviving families, and even their contact information for others to reach out.
The Bible’s diary additions are bound to include harrowing reflections of some of America’s most horrific mass tragedies — over the last 23 years, the Bible has been passed around to shooting victims in Boulder, Colorado and Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Bible most recently was sent to the family of Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who was fatally shot during the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in July.
“I hold my breath every time I send it out. It can never be replaced,” McKenna said, “but people need it.”
McKenna told The Post that families usually find him via word of mouth, or he reaches out directly. In one bizarre instance, a pair of grandparents whose grandson went missing in a plane crash asked him to hold the Bible over the phone while a chaplain led a prayer on the other line.
Less than an hour later, the child was found, McKenna said.
“It’s unbelievable how many people feel the energy that’s in there,” he said.
“I physically don’t respond to catastrophes. But my heart and soul wants to be there, it’s just a natural thing,” McKenna added.
“So I found a way to be there, through the Bible.”
