On July 22, 2003, Ramon Casillas was shot and killed on Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima. He was 21 years old. His mother, Agustina García, a catechism teacher at Mary Immaculate Church a few blocks from where he was killed, wants answers, and she does not want another mother to go through what she has gone through.

García has lived the past seven months without answers to her son's murder. Visiting his grave she has met other mothers grieving for sons they have buried, also killed in the street violence, also with no resolution as to how or why they died. "My son is not a fly," she says.

But with her son's case swept so quickly from the immediate priority of the police, she feels as if his life did not mean a thing. He is merely added to the growing statistics of unresolved homicide in our community.

Gang violence and crime in the northeast San Fernando Valley leaves many people feeling powerless and fearful. "I don't want to speak up and tell my story for fear of gang retaliation," said one woman whose son was shot six times outside of a restaurant last summer and who asked that neither her nor her son's names be used. "People are afraid," she explained. "They don't want to draw attention to themselves."

Many of the victims of the violence are parishioners at churches in the area and the funerals of those who have been killed are all too frequent.

Anger over this sense of powerlessness and fear has led parishioners at Mary Immaculate and nearby Santa Rosa Church in San Fernando, together with LA Metro Strategy-I.A.F. (a broad-based organization of congregations, schools, unions and community organizations across Los Angeles County), to convene "house meetings" (small group conversations) to begin to tell the stories of pain and anger over the violence.

"We tell our stories in order to build trust with one another," said Francisco Henríquez of Mary Immaculate, "and we build trust in order to build power for change."

The house meetings culminated in a large community meeting Jan. 21 at St. Ferdinand Church in San Fernando where more than 200 leaders met with public officials from the city of San Fernando and from both San Fernando and Los Angeles police departments.

The LAPD Foothill Division reported 23 homicides and 212 gunshot attacks in 2003. Eighteen of the 23 homicides were gang-related, according to Capt. Kirk Albanese. "Thank God for Holy Cross Hospital," he adds, "or we would likely have more fatalities from gunshots."

Living as a church and parish community in the midst of such death and destruction can be exhausting without the power to fight back. During Holy Week two years ago, Mary Immaculate hosted three funerals for young men who had been shot to death by gangs and the grief was palpable.

Building power to change the reality of violence in the northeast Valley is a long-term vision requiring a long-term strategy and is part of the work of the church. At St. Ferdinand we gained commitments from public officials to an on-going working relationship with the institutions that are a part of LA Metro-IAF. But the meeting was more than that: it was also a call to churches to be visible and relevant in the lives of their people.

Officials from the city of San Fernando and the LAPD pledged to work with local churches and schools and committed to being a part of future conversation and action. Leaders from the churches and schools committed to recruiting and training new leaders in their institutions. In the language of our faith, this is what it means to "build the Body of Christ."

Organized people together with their churches, schools and unions is what the leaders of Mary Immaculate, Santa Rosa and St. Ferdinand (all administered by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate) want to create believing that faith calls us to action. Faith in action is both the work for justice in neighborhoods as well as the development and transformation of leaders within the church. As evidenced Jan. 21 in San Fernando, the two go hand in hand.

Organizing with L.A. Metro-IAF provides the opportunity to move beyond grief and pain to solutions rooted in the hope and power of the Resurrection. Organizing also provides the tools to strengthen the institution and community of the parish and is an avenue to make lasting change.

The beginning of such change is apparent in the hope expressed by leaders following the meeting. García says that trying to seek answers in her son's murder had made her feel like an ant on the back of an elephant --- there was very little she could do alone. She now feels that she is part of something larger than herself working toward a solution, and this gives her hope.

Oblate of Mary Immaculate Father Jim Fee is pastor of Mary Immaculate Church, Pacoima.