ANOTHER cold Sunday morning in Scotland. On this Mothering Sunday the prayers in Dunblane were for the mothers of 16 children and their teacher, whose lives were so tragically ended last week.
People prayed that they might find a measure of solace in their sadness and bewilderment. "A time," as one woman said, "to try not to retreat into a private world of grief, but remember that we as Scots are a reticent race, full of spirit and of courage.
At the morning service in Dunblane Cathedral, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Right Rev James Harkness, led this grieving community in prayer to turn from "the bitter, dreadful reality which is slowly beginning to dawn" and instead "remember the special memories of our young friends. We remember how happy they were and how much fun they had together and how unfair and wrong this all seems to be."
Something in our own lives, he told us, has lost its meaning. "When our parents die, they take away a large part of the past. When children die it takes away the future."
Then he asked the congregation to hold the hand of the person sitting next to them, "so that they will know they are not alone", saying, especially to the children present who had lost many of their classmates, that it was not wrong to cry. The names of the 16 little children and their teacher were read out.
Some openly wept while others bowed their heads in a few minutes quiet reflection on the tragedy which came to this community.
One little girl, perhaps too young to fully understand what was happening, hugged her brown and white teddy bear tightly as her mother let her tears fall.
In an emotional sermon, the Presbyterian moderator prayed for what began as an "ordinary day, taking our children to school to where they felt happy and safe", and which ended in "the heartache, sorrow and despair at the loss of innocent children".
He said that whatever the questions that needed to be asked we should not look for an explanation at this time.
"God doesn't go around the world with his finger on a trigger. Never must we say that it was the will of God that our children must die." Certainly, he said "in that gym last week, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break."
Outside the cathedral, the assembled reporters and cameramen kept their distance, allowing the church-goers to return to their homes. Some of the bereaved mothers and fathers, who attended the morning service, stayed behind in the cathedral to stop and read the messages of sympathy which have poured in from around the world
Countless numbers of unnamed individuals have sent their sympathy, expressed their utter despair at the killing of so many in Dunblane. One card attached to a spray of daffodils read: "God bless all our little angels."
Later in the day, Queen Elizabeth and the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, came to Dunblane to offer a personal expression of sympathy.
Inside the cathedral, away from the gaze of the world, the queen and Princess Anne, who is patron of a bereavement organisation, met many of the mothers, fathers and grandparents and some of the young brothers and sisters of the children who died.
The queen said she wanted to express her "profound sympathy" to the people of Dunblane and said she hoped they would have "the courage to endure their anguish".
The family of Mrs Gwenne Mayor, the teacher at Dunblane school who died alongside 16 children in her class, was also there to talk to the queen.
In the late afternoon, Princess Anne laid a wreath of snowdrops, which she had picked that morning from her garden, in the grounds of Dunblane Primary School before visiting five injured teachers and children at Stirling Royal Infirmary.