Generations celebrated weddings, baptisms and first communions at this Minneapolis church before it became a site of tragedy

Minneapolis —

On late-August mornings in the Windom neighborhood, the soundscape is usually familiar and comforting. Cicadas buzz, sparrows dart between yards, neighbors trade easy greetings across tidy sidewalks and the Annunciation Catholic Church’s bells peal across southwest Minneapolis, calling parishioners to Mass as they have for more than a century.

For generations, the church and its adjoining school have served as Windom’s anchor — the site of weddings, baptisms, bake sales, Boy Scout Christmas tree lots and the ever-popular SeptemberFest featuring pie, live music and an outdoor Mass. If you didn’t attend Annunciation, someone close to you surely did.

That sense of constancy was shattered Wednesday morning when a former student opened fire during the first school Mass of the