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Cardinal Maida's prayer Cardinal Adam Maida, archbishop of Detroit, offered the following prayer following the shooting of 33 at Virginia Tech on Monday morning. Prayer for the Virginia Tech Community Heavenly Father, you sent your only Son into this world to bring peace, reconciliation, healing, and hope. In His name, we pray for all the families affected by the tragic violence at Virginia Tech.  Give them consolation and strength in their time of darkness, loss, confusion, and anger. May all those who have died rest in the peace of your presence forever.  Amen.

Blacksburg, Va. — As news of the April 16 shooting at Virginia Tech left people in the Detroit area and around the country with a powerful image of evil and carnage, a Detroit-area native priest in Virginia Tech's community assured the faithful that God's goodness is more powerful than the evil that occurred.

"We're a small town, and you're a big city," Fr. James Arsenault said, regarding what message to send to people in the Detroit area about the shooting. "Acts of violence can happen anywhere, but the grace of God is stronger than any evil."

Fr. Arsenault is pastor of St. Mary Parish in Blacksburg, Va., which is mere blocks from the Virginia Tech campus. He grew up in Wyandotte and graduated from Sacred Heart Seminary College in 1980, before serving in Virginia.

St. Mary is the parish home to many students and faculty at Virginia Tech. An estimated two-thirds of the school community is thought to be Catholic. After a student at the university on Monday killed 32 students and then himself, Fr. Arsenault began to minister to the victim's families at a nearby hospital, then at the campus. One of his parishioners, Kevin Granata, was killed in the tragedy. Three of Granata's children are altar servers.

St. Mary Parish was open for Eucharistic adoration overnight on Monday, and within a day had counseling support set up in a parish activity center.

One of the ways the victim's families and friends are finding God's comfort after the tragedy, Fr. Arsenault said, is through the Church's presence.

"They're finding God in the outpouring of the love and support from the community and their families," he said, one day after the shooting had occurred. "We've had people in church constantly."

He added that he personally had received support in the aftermath from his friends in the Detroit area.

"I'm proud to be a native Detroiter, and the support is still there," he said, mentioning that a couple of his priest friends had contacted him to show their encouragement.

His bishop, Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond, Va., called the shooting spree "tremendously sad," as other Church and political leaders around the country offered their prayers and condolences to the people close to the victims. The Church remained present in the immediate aftermath, both in the campus Newman Center and at local parishes.

Just hours after the shootings, Teresa Volante, Catholic campus minister at Virginia Tech, said she had sent out an electronic notice that the Newman Center chapel was open for anyone who wanted to stop in and pray.

Later in the afternoon Debbie McClintock, a volunteer who came in to help, said people at the center were calm and were focused on helping anyone who came in. A prayer service was held at 7 p.m. at the center.

Fr. Rob Cole from Our Lady of Nazareth Parish in Roanoke came in to celebrate a Mass at St. Mary Parish, since Fr. Arsenault was still busy ministering to victims and their families. He was one of many priests who came from neighboring parishes to help out, Fr. Arsenault said.

The university president, Charles Steger, called the shootings "a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions."

Bishop DiLorenzo, who celebrated a noon Mass for the victims April 17 at the cathedral in Richmond, said his heart goes out to the parents and family members of the dead students.

"At this time one cannot help but think of the endless years of commitment, of love and care these parents have invested in their children and then to have it all cut down by a bullet is tremendously sad," he said.

"The tragedy really hit home with me," he said, because he learned of it at a chancery luncheon that included two women who have children studying at Virginia Tech. Their children were not harmed.

Emily Flach, a freshman business major who lives on campus, said, "People are just really shocked. It's unbelievable that something like this happened."

She said her dormitory is about three minutes' walk from West Ambler Johnston, the dormitory where two students were killed in the first shooting about 7:15 a.m.

Two hours later the gunman, identified as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior from South Korea, attacked students attending classes in Norris Hall, an engineering building, shooting more than 40 people before killing himself as police were closing in.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the death toll was at 33, including Cho.

Anne Greenwood, a second-year graduate student in history, said she was in a conference room in the Major Williams building, when Cho began shooting people at nearby Norris Hall.

"To be quite honest, it was scary as hell," she said.

Michigan Catholic reporter Joe Kohn and Catholic News Service contributed to this story.