Sean and Mallory O’Brien gently guided their four young children through the first parish Mass at Annunciation in Minneapolis since an Aug. 27 church shooting at an all-school Mass shattered the community.
Molly, 2, threw a paper airplane into the aisle in the parish school’s auditorium, where the Aug. 30 Mass was held, next door to the now-desecrated church. Emmett, a 4-year-old preschooler, scribbled in a white-board puzzle book. Conor, a fourth grader, and Finley, a first grader, listened attentively.
In many ways, it felt like Mass that might be celebrated at any time of any year.
But Mallory O’Brien, 36, wiped tears from her eyes as the pastor, Father Dennis Zehren, described presiding at the all-school Mass when the shooting occurred, and recalled hearing cries of “Down, down, get low, stay down.”
Mallory later said she was not at the all-school Mass when a gunman shot through stained-glass windows and killed an 8-year-old boy, Fletcher Merkel, and a 10-year-old girl, Harper Moyski, while injuring 15 other students and three adults. The suspected shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
But her husband and three of their children were there at that Mass, while their fourth child was in the church basement, and she thought of them. With gratitude, the O’Briens take into account that no one in their family was injured. And with service and community in mind, they are helping others where they can.
“We’ve really been getting together all week ever since Wednesday (Aug. 27),” Sean O’Brien said after the Mass. “The best thing for us has been to be together with the people that we love in this parish and in this community.
“But today was really special,” he said. “We are committed as a community to maintaining the strength and the love that we’ve built for 100 years (the parish was founded in 1922) and relying on that right now to get us through this time. To be here, to be together again, really means a lot. There’s no place we’d rather be.”
Sean O’Brien, 37, is a graduate of Annunciation. His late grandfather was a deacon in the archdiocese, and he and his wife now live in the house where his grandparents once lived.
“It’s a very special place,” Sean O’Brien said. “It formed me. My mom (Cathy Dolan) attended school here, so my kids are third-generation students. I had to come back and give my kids the same thing that I was blessed with.”
Sean O’Brien said he was in the back of the church with his daughter, Molly, when shots rang out at the school Mass. Emmett was in the basement. Conor and Finley were sitting with their classmates.
“I saw a shaft of light going through the window and that’s when I knew we were being attacked,” Sean O’Brien said. “I could feel like this evil force coming through, and that’s when I knew we had to get away from it.”
“I grabbed my daughter, and we went behind a pillar. I didn’t really feel safe, so I went to another pillar more up front. When the shooting stopped, we said, ‘OK, who needs help?’ And we did what we could.’”
Sean O’Brien said he rushed to an injured student and remained there until the police came.
“There were people taking action that were motivated by the love they felt for the people around them, from the very moment things started,” he said. “And that’s only going to continue and get stronger.”
Mallory O’Brien said she learned that Finley was with her eighth-grade buddy, a tradition at the school that older students accompany younger students to school Masses.
“They held hands all the way to the school” as students were evacuated, Mallory O’Brien said. Her daughter’s buddy “took her hand and held her hand the whole way” to her teacher in the classroom.
