“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now, these kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school, they were in a church.”These are the reported words of the Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Fry, after two children were killed and 13 seriously injured in a mass shooting in a service to mark the first day of the new school year at the Church of the Annunciation in that city. The massacre raises hard questions; the ageless dilemma of why a loving and apparently all-powerful God allows such atrocities and what our response should be to these. It is the latter that is particularly exercising me. So often I find myself with people who have suffered loss, sometimes tragically and all I can say is that I will pray for them. I often feel embarrassed as I say that; it feels so inadequate. However, it is sometimes all I can do in that situation and I am a vicar; if I do not pray, I am nothing. I do not think the Mayor was rejecting thoughts and prayers, but that they need to be accompanied by action. This is particularly pertinent in the USA, with its history of regular gun massacres. There is probably nothing we can do about this particular situation other than to pray and empathise, but that ought to leave some mark on us for the future, to strengthen our resolve to reject evil.