Marian Days attendees pray for safe return home

The annual Marian Days observance in Carthage ended today with those returning home thinking of the ones who did not successfully complete the annual pilgrimage:

The scene was the same in Carthage, Mo., where a final outdoor Mass of the Marian festival's service was dedicated to the 17 victims of the Sherman bus crash.

Linh Nguyen who stood in a steady downpour of rain prayed that the rest of the festival-goers who had flocked to this Missouri town for the annual pilgrimage would return home safe.

"We have mixed feelings about what's going on, about the people who did not make it," said Nguyen, 55, of southeast Houston and a member of the Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church. "We pray for them and we pray that we all will be safe."

On the grounds of the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix, followers packed up their soggy tents and loaded up their cars for the long drives back to California, to Georgia or to Texas.