A Minnesota Catholic’s Reflection on the Annunciation Shooting
I was walking to the chapel for the 12:05 mass on the first day of classes when the text came in from my boyfriend in Minnesota: “Pray for Annunciation in Minneapolis. School shooter this morning, 2 dead and 20 more injured.”
Dear God, I thought. Annunciation. That’s twenty minutes from my house. Twenty minutes from where my sister goes to Catholic school. That can’t be. That’s the sort of thing that happens in other places, not in my diocese.
My feeling of disbelief was only exacerbated a few hours later, when I learned that Robert Westman, the shooter who killed two innocent children as they prayed during mass, had attended my own Catholic school for a brief period; that he knew people that I know; that he might just as easily have decided to open fire at a Saint Agnes school mass, with my little sister in the pews.
Next to intense grief that such a horrific thing could have happened in my own community, the overwhelming thought in my mind in the days following the shooting has been a deep realization that this world is not a safe place. It is so easy to become comfortable in the illusion of permanence that the world gives us, in the natural feeling of safety that we have in our communities and to forget that evil is not something that just exists “in other places.” We forget that Satan is constantly and desperately looking for a way into our own churches, our own schools, our own communities. We forget that spiritual destruction breeds physical destruction. I was reminded of these things on August 27.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey put out a now-viral statement immediately after the shooting:. “Don’t say this is just about thoughts and prayers right now,” he said. “These kids were literally in a church praying.” In one sense, Frey is right. This is no time to give an insincere “you’re in my thoughts and prayers” and move on with our lives. But in a deeper sense, it is exactly what every St. Paul-Minneapolis Catholic is feeling right now. Yes, the families of Annunciation are in our thoughts– we couldn’t get them out if we tried. Yes, they are in our prayers, because when we look around at one another for comfort and answers and can offer one another none, we can only look up to Him.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis gave his own statement on August 27, saying that“it’s through prayer and that prayer of the feet” that we can affect change. This response echoes the passage from the book of James oft quoted in Catholic circles: “prayer without works is dead.” By its very nature, prayer spurs us to action, to “prayer of the feet.” Be it a financial donation to the Annunciation Hope and Healing Fund, advocacy work to fight the blight that mass shooting is on our nation, or simply a loving word to someone you know who may have been affected by this tragedy, it is the duty of every Catholic to respond actively to this attack on the body of Christ.
And yet we must always remember that our action must begin and be always rooted in our prayer. Without Him, we can do nothing. So, as a St. Paul-Minneapolis Catholic, I beg you: pray for Annunciation. Pray for the souls of Fletcher Merkel and Harper Moyski– the children who lost their lives on August 27, 2025. Pray for their families and for all the families who are forever affected by this great evil. Pray for Fr. Dennis Zehren, the pastor of Annunciation. Pray for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. And pray for wisdom to understand how you, an American Catholic, are called to actively respond to this attack on your community.