Priests who last week comforted still-bleeding children and pastors who prayed with anxious parents on Monday turned to the familiar rituals surrounding Christian burials. Volunteers flew and drove in from across Texas and all over the country to help with various aspects of the funerals. Operators of a food truck handed out food and water. Florists shaped casket “sprays.” The head of the Texas Funeral Directors Association brought in an extra funeral coach along with other morticians — some experts at the art of facial reconstruction — to assist.

As the priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church — the only Catholic church in Uvalde — Father Eduardo Morales was bracing for a calendar of incessant grief, a kind of schedule that can follow only a mass-casualty event like the one that shook the nation here last Tuesday.

Morales, known as “Father Eddy,” will host funeral after funeral for the victims practically every day beginning Tuesday — sometimes two in one day, about a dozen in all.

“Everyone here knows someone who was killed,” he said at the church after Saturday Mass. “There’s going to be a lot of tears and a lot of sadness … but as we continue to celebrate their lives, they will turn into tears of joy.”