Hope, healing highlight prayer service and Mass 1 month since Annunciation shooting

(OSV News) -- Sharing hugs, tears and smiles, more than 150 people gathered on the lawn outside Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis for a morning prayer service Sept. 27.

Led by Principal Matthew DeBoer, as well as the pastor, Father Dennis Zehren, and teachers and others in the Annunciation community, the 40-minute gathering at 8:30 a.m. marked exactly one month since a shooting at the church during an all-school Mass killed two students and wounded 21 other people.

At 10 a.m., Archbishop Bernard Hebda presided and Bishop Michael Izen and numerous priests concelebrated a Memorial Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul for the two students who lost their lives -- 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski -- and their families, and to pray for healing for the students and families of Annunciation school and parish.

"A special word of welcome to our Annunciation community," Archbishop Hebda said in opening remarks. "I realize there are so many things going on in your lives. I am delighted that you would take time to join us as we offer this holy Mass, as we mark 30 days, this one month’s time, (since) the tragedy. ... You know the whole archdiocese has been praying fervently throughout these days. In many ways, people might say they’re all prayed out. I see many of you who (have been) at the daily Rosary at Annunciation at 9 p.m. I know you’ve been offering your prayers."

At the prayer service, DeBoer spoke about the Merkel home as a place of hope and joy, and a day in August that Fletcher’s mother, Mollie, told him about. DeBoer described girls from the school with their "softball arms" flinging water balloons at boys from the school who were playing basketball in the Merkel’s backyard, "shooting hoops, probably shooting a lot of bricks, if I know those boys as their former coach."

"It turned into this beautiful back and forth," DeBoer said. "She shared a video with me this week. The end of the video is Harper and Fletcher breaking open the balloons right over their heads to see who is more wet. We have to remember that joy. We have to remember that light," the principal said.

Many at the prayer service and at the Mass wore one of two recently made Annunciation T-shirts, one bearing the word "Hope" on the front with the words "Together we heal" on the back, the other with "Joy" on the front and "Be the light" on the back.

Lydia Kaiser, 12, who suffered a gunshot wound on the left side of her head, was at the prayer service with members of her family. Harry Kaiser, her father and Annunciation’s gym teacher, said his daughter passed all cognitive, speech and physical tests so she was discharged from the hospital without any therapy referrals, though the family will continue to monitor her recovery.

Lydia said she was back in school at Annunciation, which has been resuming classes in stages since Sept. 16.

Many in the Kaiser family, including Lydia, also attended Mass at the cathedral. Her mother, Leah, spoke through tears afterward about the support her family has received.

"I am just incredibly grateful that I am part of this Catholic community that is called Annunciation," Leah Kaiser said. "It has brought this community together in prayer with the archbishop and all of his loving words. Our beautiful pastor, Father Zehren, and his just amazing homily. ...

"There are no words to express how much hope and love has just covered this whole dark event in our family and our community, in our daughter," Leah Kaiser said. "All of us are suffering. But it is very clear that the light and the love are dominating everything."

In his homily, Father Zehren thanked those gathered and "all of the good and faithful followers of Jesus around the world" who have lifted the Annunciation community in prayer.

"You have been such a source of strength, such a source of comfort to us all, that we pray that that same comfort of Jesus would now return back to you," Father Zehren said. "As St. Paul writes, you have sown generously, may you also reap generously the great comfort of Jesus that you have shown us. May you come to know that, too, in your hearts."

Father Zehren said that in raising Fletcher, Harper and others in prayer, "we too, could be raised up to a little greater faith, a little greater hope. And it’s true, it’s the case when we commend somebody to heaven, then heaven more becomes our home. We understand better where we’re supposed to be heading. And when we commend our loved ones to God, then God becomes more real for us."

Sophia Forchas, 12, who was in critical condition for two weeks with head injuries from the shooting, has been recovering in a way her family has described as nothing short of miraculous.

Father Zehren said he has been praying the words "talitha koum" for Sophia, which means little girl, arise, and are the words Jesus spoke in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Mark as he raised a girl from the dead.

"And it’s true that when one is raised up, we all get raised up a little more," Father Zehren said. "And it’s been wondrous, miraculous, to see how Sophia has been being raised up. And every time we hear good news, how she takes another step and is raised up a little higher, we too are raised up a little higher to know the wonders of God working in our midst."

Noting the gift Fletcher and Harper were to the community when they were alive, Father Zehren said they point to an aspect of being childlike in the eyes of Jesus, that of "just being lovable.

"Children are just so cute and lovable," Father Zehren said. "It’s been fun listening to the stories of Fletcher and Harper and how lovable they were. Fletcher’s mother says that Fletcher was the ‘fletchiest Fletcher that ever fletched.’ It sounds like he was just such an outpouring of life and love as little boys can be. And Harper, I hear, was a perfect mix of sweet and spicy, and she was full of life, too. They were just so lovable. And so, to become childlike means that we should try to be more lovable."

"Sometimes I see somebody, and I think, ‘I don’t think that guy even wants to be loved the way he’s being,’" Father Zehren said. "Can we just try to be a little more lovable so that it’s easier for people to love us? What a gift of a childlike spirit that would be."

Father Zehren closed his homily by noting that Annunciation’s school has reopened and is "humming again. We’re gathering together for Mass. Sometimes we wonder, how did we get here? But we know it’s been the loving arms of God lifting us and carrying us all the way. Thanks to your support and prayers working through the body of Christ in our midst."