Brokenhearted after last week’s church mass shooting

My heart sank Wednesday morning as I was listening to the radio while working on the computer.
WCCO delivered a “breaking news alert” of an active shooting situation unfolding in south Minneapolis. Sadly, shootings in Minneapolis are so routine these days that they most often leave me unfazed. But this one was quite different and left me sick to my stomach.
I quickly learned a church was involved along with young children attending Mass during their first week of the school year. As a parent of children, any act of violence towards kids hits me hard. I joined many other Minnesotans with a broken heart.
A 23-year-old man killed two children and shot 17 other people at Annunciation Church before turning one of his three weapons on himself. An 8- and a 10-year-old were slain as they sat in their pews.
Once the smoke cleared from the barrage of gunfire, authorities found that more than 100 rounds had been fired. It was a morning of terror that will forever haunt many children and adults in attendance at the church.
If there is one place that people shouldn’t have to worry about violence, it should be a church. We should feel safe in church. Dressed in their green uniforms, the children of the Catholic School were engaged in the most innocent and peaceful of rituals—prayer.
The killer was obviously hell bent on carrying out a slaughter that we most likely will never understand. He left two chilling posts online in which someone stabs a drawing of the inside of a church with a knife, glorifies mass killers and fixates on school shootings.
“I can’t wait to kill and kill and kill and kill,” he repeatedly said in the video. Another frequent refrain: “I fall apart, I break and I die.”
It’s incredibly sad how the evil actions of one person can impact the lives of so many.
I don’t like to get political with these types of things, but for the sake of our future, our elected leaders need to do something to stop the nonsense and carnage from ripping families apart. Tragedies like the one that played out in the church last week have become far too common. When are we as a society going to say, “enough is enough?”
Mindless acts of violence and senseless attacks have no place in society. While I certainly don’t have the answers, I agree with Archbishop Bernard Hebda who stressed how we need to end gun violence.
In a time of desperation like Minnesota experienced last week, we need to commit to being the Light to our children, each other and our community.
While I’m still brokenhearted for those directly impacted by the mass shooting, I am also filled with hope—hope that we can go in hot pursuit of working together to rebuild our future. The key word is together.