The tragedy this week at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis marked the first school shooting of the new school year. It's heartbreaking and outrageous to have to note that there will almost certainly be more. Education Week, which tracks shootings at K through 12 schools, says there were more than two dozen during the last school year.
Once again, we hear about children — children — crying and scrambling to try to protect one another in a place where they should be safe. We sputter for words that have become dulled from repetition — like "tragic," "heartbreaking," and "outrageous" — because, as Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz said this week at one of the press conferences of grim-faced public officials, "There shouldn't be words for these types of incidents since they should not happen."
But it has come to happen over and over in America. Children run for their lives from classrooms and playgrounds. Reporters write obituaries remembering youngsters who had just begun to live. We offer prayers, thoughts, and vows that such an abominable crime must never happen again. And then it does.
Those inside the church Wednesday morning were at prayer to begin the school day. Matthew DeBoer, the principal of Annunciation Catholic School, told a press conference that he'd planned for this school year's theme to come from the Book of Jeremiah: "a future filled with hope."
"There's nothing that happened today that can fill us with hope," the principal said. "We lost two angels today…"
"We can't change the past," he said. "But we can do something about the future. There's an African proverb that says, 'When you pray, move your feet.'… So I beg you, and I ask you to please pray, but don't stop with your words. Let's make a difference and support this community, these children, these families and teachers, never again can we let this happen."
Archbishop Bernard Hebda spoke next. As he addressed reporters, the church bell began ringing to mark the hour.
"The bell in the Catholic church is always a call to prayer," said the Archbishop, "so it's a reminder for us for sure to be praying. And we have to recognize that it's through prayer and through that prayer of the feet, through that action, that we can indeed make a difference. That has to be the source of our hope."
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