When it is time for Wednesday Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church, students from the school next door file into the front pews and settle in with their assigned buddies from different grades. Middle schoolers might sit with first graders, fifth graders with third graders.

It is a sacred, if ordinary, part of the rhythm at Annunciation in Minneapolis, where children practice for their turn to read Scripture or to be part of the choir during their grade’s week to help lead the Mass.

“You feel important as a second grader, going up in front of your school and doing a reading,” said Conor O’Rourke, 23, who attended Annunciation Catholic School from kindergarten through eighth grade.

That tradition was shattered this week, during the first Wednesday Mass of the school year, when a shooter fired into the service during the recitation of Psalm 139. The attack killed two students and left 18 people injured. At least one student, who was shot in the back, used his body to protect another child.

“You have searched me and you know me, Lord,” the day’s psalm says in part. “For you darkness itself is not dark, and night shines as the day.”

The shooting has brought a tragic spotlight to a busy urban parish that much preferred being locally famous for its Wiffle ball field and its annual SeptemberFest. And it has pushed into action a support network at the church that, one member said, had long functioned as a sort of small town within Minneapolis.