On Dec. 14, 2012, when the horror of the day was made real – a gunman had shot 26 people, including 20 children, inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, houses of worship swung their doors open to receive and minister to the grieved.
“You have to give people a chance to pray. What else can we do in such a tragedy?” said Susan Kalbaugh, a Stephen Minister at Newtown United Methodist Church.
By nightfall on Dec 14, thousands flocked to a vigil at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church. Included in the mass of humanity inside the church was Abbas Alavi, a soft-spoken Muslim who felt compelled to attend the vigil despite his differing faith.
The next day, still heartbroken Alavi returned to St. Rose of Lima armed with Christmas cards stuffed with $5 bills he handed out to children. It was his way of doing “something for the children.”
Rev. Sharon K. Gracen with Trinity Episcopal Church in Branford wasted no time in seeing the connection between the tragedy and guns. Two days after the shooting, she stood at the pulpit and asked her congregation to turn in their guns and violent video games.
Tighter gun control law would be rallying cry across most of the nation to assure that another Sandy Hook would never occur. But the battle would not be easily won. In Connecticut, thousands of protesters claimed the front steps of the capitol in Hartford, demanding stricter gun laws in the state. They got.
But many Newtown clergy believed there was still work to be done on the national level. In March, a group of interfaith Newtown clergy collected more than 4,000 signatures from religious leaders from around the country on a letter urging the U.S. Senate to support tighter control measures.
Soon after the shooting, reflections and posts written by HartfordFAVS contributors poured in, each offering a different perspective on the tragedy.
The Sunday after the shooting when many clergy struggled to make sense of the massacre in the midst of a loving God, Rev. Josh Pawelek in a sermon asked his flock, “What does the world require of you?
S.L. Woodford offered a reflection that implored “… all parents will hold their children closely; that Newtown parents, who now have empty arms, will be held closely by others; and that God, who is a Lord of mercy, will give rest to all.”
When the shootings turned personal for HartfordFAVS Blogger Mark Azzara, his post basically said ” Our nation needs a savior.”
Lyn Greenwood offered a Mormon’s perspective on comfort from unimaginable pain.
Rabbi Ori Clare offered “An epitaph for a small town.”
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community offered condolences and sorrow to the families and friends affected by the tragedy.
By late December, bells rang out across the nation for the victims of the shooting. Many tolled 26 times for the 20 children and six adults killed.
But Rev. Charles Hawbrick-Stowe rang the bells of his Congregational Church in Ridgefield 28 times, including one for Adam Lanza and his mother.
“It mystified me that at a vigil in our town almost every speaker referred to the 26 victims, as if the other two were somehow already in hell, out of our sight and mind, beyond redemption,” he wrote in a piece for HartfordFAVS.
In Newtown, people from around the country poured into the town, ready to help, pray , and grieve with the families.
The town was flooded with toys and teddy bear donations. Even books on how to cope with grief, thousands of them, poured into the Newtown Public Library. “People are taking the books home by the bagful,” said said Children’s Librarian Alana Bennison.
In Waterbury, Rev. Al Sharpton preached a fiery sermon inside the Zion Baptist Church urging the faithful to rise up and fight for gun control and preserve mental health budgets.
While President Obama assured a stunned nation that Newtown was not alone in its grief, vigils were held across the nation, including one in West Hartford attended by hundreds in a cold rain.
Weeks later after the shooting, when it was clear that the Newtown police officers who responded the carnage inside the elementary school would likely suffer from PTSD, HartfordFAVS contributor Linda Ross penned this piece offering spiritually as their best defense.
Throughout the constant media coverage, while the motive of the gunman, Adam Lanza, still a mystery, Patricia Sabato, a Newtown mother wrote a piece for HartfordFAVS calling for Lanza’s medical records to be released. She was the lone voice amid the cacophony calling for stricter gun control laws after the shooting and was convinced that Lanza’s mental state played a role in the shooting.
On a lighter and comforting note, in January a team of four-legged Lutheran pastors called “comfort dogs.” welcomed Sandy Hook School children back to class.
Also in January, HartfordFAVS contributor Alison wrote that “nearly 10,000 people filled the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport for “A Night of Hope & Healing” concert to praise, worship and remember the souls of the shooting.”
The Dae Yen Sa International Buddhist Temple and Meditation Center in New Hartford held a ceremony to release the souls of the Newtown shooting victims to Heaven. The monks and congregation prayed for 49 straight days, in keeping with the Korean Buddhist tradition.
In March, during the Easter season children from schools in Newtown took part in a Living Stations of the Cross at St. Rose of Lima Church in Newtown.
Many who attended the performance, found the symbolic display of Christ’s agony and resurrection as a hopeful sign for their town.
