Annunciation community gathers for its first weekend Mass since Wednesday’s tragedy

The Annunciation parish community gathered to celebrate Mass on Saturday evening, only days after a deadly shooting killed two children and wounded 19 other people during Mass Wednesday morning.

The service took place in the Annunciation School auditorium — the parish’s sanctuary years ago — just steps away from where Wednesday’s tragedy unfolded during a Mass attended by students during the first week of school.

Parishioners and Catholics from other parishes filed in, many with wet eyes.

“It’s so sad,” one man said through tears as he walked toward the entrance of the old church.

“Coming for Mass is what we, as Catholics, do to feel that kind of normality,” Archbishop Bernard Hebda told reporters before the Mass.

Hebda said he saw members of the Annunciation community seeking that normality amid the week’s tragic events, including at HCMC on Saturday morning as he was visiting with the injured.

One girl, he said, had shared an ambulance with another on Wednesday, and told him that the two had held hands and prayed as they were taken to the hospital.

“It’s that return to those things that are so familiar to us that I think is important this afternoon, Hebda said.”

The Minneapolis Police Department updated the number of people injured in the attack from 20 to 21 on Sunday — 18 children and three adults.

The Rev. Dennis Zehren, who became Annunciation’s pastor only last month, delivered a homily that focused on humility and light in times of darkness. He noted that parishioners may not be sitting for some time in their usual pews in the church, which is a crime scene and must be re-consecrated before it can be used for worship.

“We come back to our humble beginnings,” he said, of the service held in the old church. “That’s what this day represents for us. ... It will not be the same, it will not be easy, it will never be the same. But it’s a beginning.”

Zehren was holding Mass in the church on Wednesday when the shooting happened.

Through tears, he said he had hoped to get between the kids and the bullets.

Zehren’s homily evoked an Old Testament image of Israelites in battle. As long as Moses’ arms were lifted in prayer, he said, the Israelites succeeded. When he was tired and his arms dropped, they fell back.

“People put rocks under Moses’ arms to keep them lifted up in prayer,” Zehren said. “So many people have been our rocks under our arms,” he said, including the church and school communities, neighbors, and Fletcher Merkel and Harper Moyski — the two children killed in the shooting.

Zehren said he didn’t know how to thank everyone for demonstrating God’s love. “God says, ‘When the forces of darkness and evil have done their worst, just watch. Just watch what I will do now,’ ” he said.

For miles around the south Minneapolis church, sign posts, stop lights and trees were decked out with ribbons in blue and green, Annunciation’s school colors. A steady stream of people filed past the church where the tragedy took place, bringing flowers and well wishes, and paying their respects to those killed and injured.

“They were in Mass at the same time,” she said. “It hits so close to home, unlike anything has before.”

Decker pointed out a photo taped to one of the many buckets of flowers in front of the church. In the photo, the sun is setting over the rose gardens at Lake Harriet and casting four beams of light in the shape of a cross.

“God comes through to us in different ways, and this could be looked at as a way of him telling us, ‘I’m with you, I’m here, I haven’t gone,’” she said, explaining what she told her son.

Joe and Bonnie Munn drove from Osseo to attend the Mass at Annunciation and support Zehren, who had been the priest at their church.

“We used to enjoy his sermons, because he’s been through a lot in his life,” Joe Munn said. “He’s been through a lot, but nothing like this.”

Weber said he planned to attend one or both of the Masses this weekend at Annunciation.

“It’s really the only reason I’m here — just to see everybody, connect bases and make sure people are doing all right," he said.