A Litany and Prayer after the Minneapolis Shooting

Author: Pastor Kathryn
August 27, 2025

For the children killed and the children wounded, for parents, families and all who grieve — Lord, have mercy.
For the people of Minneapolis, shaken and afraid — Christ, have mercy.
For healers, helpers and all who keep vigil —Lord, have mercy.
For our nation, trapped in the epidemic of gun violence — Christ, deliver us.
For courage to pursue the things that make for peace — Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Holy Savior, Prince of Peace, you wept at a tomb and gathered children in your arms.We believe you are weeping now — weeping with parents whose arms are empty, with siblings who cannot comprehend absence, with our Catholic neighbors numb with shock.
Hold the dead in your mercy. Hold the wounded in your healing. Hold the terrified in your tenderness.
Forgive us, God, for our numbness, our quick forgetting, our resignation to violence as “just the way things are.” Deliver us from our excuses, that we may choose the labor of peace: to protect children, to confront powers profiting from weapons and fear, to build a more just society where all your children can flourish.
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Amen.
You are not alone...
The above was written by Teri McDowell Ott and posted on the Presbyterian Outlook website. If you are struggling to find the right words to pray, you are not alone. I borrowed those words because all I have are tears and bewilderment at how our country can continue to double-down on its interpretation of the 2nd Amendment while children die during worship. You are not alone. Please keep not only these families in prayer, but as more becomes known about the shooter, please keep the trans community in your prayers. Already the most at risk, this tragedy will be used to continue to bludgeon and berate them.
Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.
In your mercy Lord, hear our prayers...

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