Annunciation pastor reflects on one year since the tragic church and school shooting
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On a rainy overcast day, Father Dennis Zehren sits in his old office. The one that was peppered with bullet holes after a shooter fired dozens of rounds into the stained glass windows of the church.
"This office space we had to abandon shortly after the shooting because it was a mess,” Zehren said.
In the aftermath, the staff moved to a temporary space on campus. Now, Zehren said things are slowly going back to normal.
“We're just trying to pick up the pieces and bring light to a place that became a place of darkness.”
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‘Weep with those who weep’
Last year, Zehren said his sermons focused on assuring the school children and church parishioners that things would be OK. Today, the pastor looks at how scripture talks about trauma.
“Saint Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that we are to weep with those who weep,” Zehren said. “So, the Bible never just tells us we'll just try to cheer them up or just try to get them to move on, but he tells us to weep with those who weep.”
Zehren teaches that Jesus heals suffering from within and, as a Catholic, believes that suffering is a part of everyone's journey.
“And we don't feel like it's something that God has abandoned us when we suffer. We recognize that God is right there in the midst of it.”
Zehren said the year has had its ups and downs as the church figures out how to move forward from this tragedy. The shooting was in his first week as pastor, and now that he’s gotten to know the school children, he’s also been able to see more of their resilience. For example, on Halloween one student’s costume made him tear up.
“One little first grader. She was wearing a blue running suit and a blue baseball cap that was put on backwards, and she ran up to me and she said, ‘Father, guess what I am?’ And I said, ‘I don't know. Are you a Smurf?’ And she said, ‘No, I'm Sophia."
Sophia Forchas is a student who was critically injured in the shooting. She wore an all-blue outfit when she was released from the hospital.
“I think she recognized that Sophia was somebody that inspired her, and somebody that she had grown to love through this experience,” Zehren said. “And that's one of the ways we find healing.”
‘This is my home’
Zehren said as the year went on, he had to be more sensitive about how he approached difficult issues because the children were in different places of healing, but he encouraged them to own their stories.
“Children are storytellers, and they love to hear the stories of our faith, and you know they find applications for their own lives. And that's one of the things that I try to impress upon the children is like you've got a story here, you know, and it's up to you how you're going to tell it.”
Zehren is the first pastor in over 30 years to live in the house on campus. He said the children are surprised to find out he lives where they go to school and church, but he sees it as a way to give them peace.
“This is my home, and I hope that kind of instills in them a sense of security and a sense of safety, and just the knowledge of knowing that Father is always here, looking over his sheep, always looking over the sheepfold, and making sure everything's all right,” Zehren said. “So, I would hope that the gift of presence is gonna bear fruit for them as they grow.”
Annunciation school’s theme this year is Guide Our Feet into the Way of Peace. Zehren said they chose it because they don’t want the students to see peace as passive, they want to teach them to take steps towards peace and actively seek it.
