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The Annunciation Catholic Church community convened for its first worship services this weekend days after a mass shooting there killed two children and left 18 injured.

Father Dennis Zehren greeted the congregation and noted that they were assembled in the auditorium, rather than their main chapel, where the shooting took place.

“We are in a lower place than we could have ever imagined,” Zehren said. “And we can look around and we can see that this is not our normal seat. This is not where we usually gather.”

Zehren pointed to the Gospel reading shared in Catholic parishes around the world this weekend. It calls for people to take the lowest seat when they’re invited to the table as a guest. He said congregants unknowingly lived through that guidance as bullets pierced church windows.

“Jesus says, ‘Can you just sit with me here in the dust for a while? Sit with me here in this low place?’” Zehren said. “And that was the very first message we heard on Wednesday morning when that first bullet came through the window and the voices cried out, ‘Down, down. Get low. Stay down. Stay down. Don't get up.’” 

“It’s hard for us to hear sometimes. We don’t like it there in the lowest place, but we just had to sit there,” he continued. “We just had to sit there in that lowest place with Jesus for a while.”

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While it still feels dark, Zehren said a light is emerging.

“He began to show us a light. It’s a new light. The light of a new day is breaking, and that's what we do now, at Annunciation, we watch for that light of a new day,” he told the congregation.

The mass shooting in Minneapolis attracted the attention of Pope Leo XIV. He prayed for the 

survivors and all those affected by gun violence

“We include in our prayers the countless children killed and injured every day around the world. Let us plead, God, to stop the pandemic of arms large and small, which infects our world,” the pontiff said.

Outside Annunciation, displays of flowers, stuffed animals and photos were built up in the days after the shooting. Daniel Markcou lives nearby and says he walks to the memorial with his dog as a way to honor the victims. 

“Everyone in Minneapolis and especially in the neighborhood, they just want to do something right now,” he said. “They want to be of use, of value to one another and the people impacted by this horrible thing.”

Neighborhood Community Support and Resource Center

 for those affected by the shooting at Lynnhurst Park. Mental health, spiritual support and victim resources will be available to those in need on Monday and Tuesday.

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Parish leaders said light would follow a dark chapter at the church days after two children were killed and 18 injured in a shooting there.

‘We watch for that light of a new day’: Annunciation Catholic Church returns for service

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