When I watched the stunning events unfold on the news and the death toll climbed from 20 to more than 30 people (with many more injured), I found myself thinking of my own students and colleagues, unable to imagine what it must be like to have this happen within one’s own community.

But more than that, I was reminded how broken our world is. Our world is torn with anguish, despair, and rage, even in the places we least expect, the places we assume are safe. Suffering is part of being in the world for all of us, but understanding suffering as a fundamental part of what it means to be human is of particular importance within Christian theology. And we cry and mourn alongside those at Virginia Tech because even though their specific pain is unimaginable, we are intimately familiar with the pain of being human, the fragility of life, and the agony of watching terrible things happen to good people.

As far as a response: for those of us who believe in prayer, we pray. When I worry that in situations like these when even prayer seems futile, I try to remember the monks and nuns who for centuries have spent their entire lives cloistered in prayer as their service to a broken world, praying for its healing, and trust in their faith in prayer. That’s how I dispel my fears that prayer is not enough. Prayer is something, even if it is all we can offer.

And then I think of the Eucharist: in the Christian tradition, we are all part of the Body of Christ and taking communion is how we remember that we are all One Body. As One Body, we are connected to all those at Virginia Tech who are suffering, mourning, and enraged, and we are called to do what we can to heal the part of the Body that hurts, as best as we know how.

Even if all we can do is pray and remember.