The death of a 4-year-old serves as a reminder of how precious life is and how interconnected we should be as a community, students at Helias High School were told during a Wednesday morning Mass.
The Mass was held in remembrance of Darnell Gray, a 4-year-old boy who had been the subject of a nearly week-long search and whose body was discovered Tuesday afternoon.
The Rev. Stephen Jones, Helias president, led the Mass that was opened to the community as a way to "ask the Lord to comfort those who love Darnell and for law enforcement as they continue their investigation."
Darnell lived on Buena Vista Street, which is within walking distance of Helias.
"He lived just yards away from this building and may one day have been a Crusader himself," Jones told those at the Mass. "The circumstances, whatever they may be, affect all of us in our community. Not just those who live down the hill from us because the loss of life of a 4-year-old boy is tragic."
Jones said this should serve as a reminder to all in the community about how we approach our neighbors.
"It gives us the opportunity to say, 'Lord, give me the grace to see you in every human I come in contact with,'" Jones said. "We need to make that the philosophical root of our life."
He noted a Bible passage which talks about some who are first will be last and some who are last will be first in heaven.
"I imagine that young people who die tragically get to move to the front of the line, when it comes to God," Jones said.
When Darnell was reported missing last Thursday, it was an anxious day around Helias as law enforcement officers were going around the area, Jones recalled.
"During services that day, the Highway Patrol helicopter was flying over the school as they were looking for Darnell, and I could not help but think about my own 4-year-old girl and the heartache that the family was going through," Jones said. "The authorities searched the grounds and asked if they could look at our video. Our IT man was with them throughout the day, trying to find anything that might show where he (Darnell) might have gone."
Jones said the boy's tragic death "may be a moment of prompting for us to step out of our comfort zones."
"Our campus minister and myself met with the director of Catholic Charities last week, and the question they brought to us was how can we better serve our neighborhood, the entire community that surrounds our school," he told the audience. "I don't have the answer completely, but I know that we want to be able to find ways.
"What that looks like we'll have to be creative and collaborate with other people because we don't have the resources in just our building," he said. "But working with others, we can definitely do it. This is our neighborhood, and we want to be proud of it."