University of Hawaiçi students Salome Jones, 19, left, and Hosanna Saldana, 20, bow their heads in prayer during an on-campus vigil for victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. Vigils were also held at Parke Chapel at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, and Hawaiçi Pacific University. JOAQUIN SIOPACK | The Honolulu Advertiser

Noel Lovelace, the minister of music at Central Union Church, was on his way back from having blood drawn when he spotted the sign on the grounds of St. Andrew's for a requiem Mass for victims of the Virginia Tech shootings.

His relatives include eight Virginia Tech graduates.

"I'm so sorry for the families," Lovelace said after the Mass, tears welling in his eyes.

Vigils were also held yesterday at the University of Hawai'i and Hawai'i Pacific University as people in Honolulu, touched by a tragedy 4,600 miles away, gathered to express their sorrow.

"It should be safe to go to school," retiree Glen "Kalena"Fernandez said at St. Andrew's. "I cannot comprehend this."

"It's a difficult process for the whole country right now," said Reyna Miyashiro, a psychologist who works with the state Department of Education. She understands the frustrations of the school authorities: "You can't limit people's freedom because they're odd and depressed and suicidal. You want them to overcome it. If anyone knew or could predict the future, they'd have plucked him out."

But the frustration of seeing such senseless violence on campus gave others pause, including the priest leading the requiem Mass.

"(We) see college as a rebirth," the Rev. Gregory Johnson said. "It's not supposed to be about dying."

Amanda Jenkins, a 27-year-old graduate of James Madison University in Virginia, said she was able to talk to a friend at Virginia Tech during Monday's lockdown, checking to make sure the friend was not among the victims.

Jenkins found solace in yesterday's Mass.

"I'm not particularly religious, but I'm glad they did this — anything that would help, to bring some peace to it," she said.

Nearby, Hawai'i Pacific University held a lunchtime prayer service. About 35 students, faculty and staff watched as a candle was lit for Virginia Tech and another for the HPU community, "symbols that together, we're trying to dispel the darkness, the sadness of these events," said the Rev. Dale Burke, university chaplain.

A big card was left out for students to write their thoughts. It will be made available to others on campus, then sent to Virginia Tech as a way to spread aloha, Burke said.

"The more opportunities we have to face it, to focus our thought process on it, begins the healing," he said.

Campus Crusade for Christ UHManoa included a prayer vigil for victims of the Virginia Tech shootings at its weekly meeting last night at the Hawai'i Institute for Geophysics auditorium. About 50 people were in attendance when the meeting started at 7:10 p.m. with a short video presentation on what occurred at Virginia Tech.

Ereke Bruce, 27, a Campus Crusade staffer, said, "We want students to have personal healing and try to attach meaning through God and through Christ of the suffering going on, not only at Virginia Tech but in their lives."

Sophomore Billy Lawson, 23, of Kahala, said the shootings are on most everyone's minds and that he would pray for healing.

"People make judgments every day, but the truth is you never know what is in anyone else's mind," Lawson said. "I'm not really in fear because I have Christ."

UHfootball players Davone Bess and Myron Newberry came to pay their respects in prayer for the Virginia Tech victims.

"It's touched a whole lot of people and I think we all realize we could have easily been in that situation,"Bess said.

Christel Reichert, 21, a UH senior from Yap of the Federated States of Micronesia, attended the vigil to lend support through prayer.

"We're trying to put ourselves in their shoes to try and understand what the families and students are going through,"Reichert said. "I feel safe but (the shootings) have made me realize the reality it could happen anywhere."