Skaggs Catholic Center holds prayer vigil for Orlando victims

IC photo/Marie Mischel

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Members of the Juan Diego Catholic High School soccer team gather with other members of the community at the June 13 rosary in the Skaggs Catholic Center grotto. See additional photos on the Intermountain Catholic Facebook page.

DRAPER — A June 13 prayer service in the Skaggs Catholic Center grotto in Draper, Utah, drew more than 100 people who prayed a decade of the rosary in memory of the victims of the shooting in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

They also prayed for the victims’ families.

The prayer service was organized by officials of Juan Diego Catholic High School, one of the three schools in the Skaggs Catholic Center.  It was held in the grotto, which is planted with rose bushes and contains a statue of St. Juan Diego kneeling before Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The grotto is a “sacred place for us” and “represents the soul of the campus” where students gather to pray at various times, said Dave Brunetti, the school’s director of Campus Life.

“This is where we come as a community to feel comfort,” agreed Julie Gately, who has had three children go through the Skaggs Catholic Center schools. “The grotto is where we feel safest and feel like we can open our hearts and let ourselves feel hurt.”

William Flanagan, a Juan Diego CHS senior who was among those who led a decade of the rosary during the prayer vigil, said the shootings saddened him, and that he hoped the vigil “helps get all those innocent souls into heaven and with that said, I hope it helps the families, too.”

“A good response to a tragedy like this is prayer,” said Juan Diego Catholic High School Principal Dr. Galey Colosimo to those gathered in the grotto. “Whether you’re Catholic or not, it doesn’t matter. I think we’re all here in solidarity together tonight. Just pray for so many things: the victims and their families, certainly, and for our country, and for our world.”

Also among those at the event was Juan Diego CHS senior Alannah Clay, who said she and other members of the Soaring Eagle girls soccer team felt passionate about attending, and that she hoped the prayers “brought comfort to some of the families back in Orlando; that they know there are people out there supporting them.”

Although the Catholic Church opposes the gay lifestyle, Clay said she wanted to pray for the victims and their families because “we still feel that they are human beings and that we love them and we still cherish them and that it’s a terrible thing that happened to them.”

While praying, she felt God’s support and “I could feel Our Lady of Guadalupe’s presence when I looked up at her during our prayer service,” Clay said.