The scene outside the LA Fitness center in Collier last night was eerily similar to that after last Tuesday's shooting: Ambulances ringed the parking lot, a police cordon secured the site, and groups of family members, friends and area residents waited outside the club.

But last night, the hundreds of people standing in that parking lot waited not in fear but in hope -- hope that the candlelight vigil for victims of the shooting, their families and their community would help heal the wound of an event that horrified an entire city, and the nation.

"It just hit home," said Lisa Angle, 50, of Bridgeville, who attended the vigil with her 23-year-old daughter Chelsea. "Columbine, then Virginia Tech, and now it's our turn -- it's just really sad. I hope all those people can get past it."

With God's help, even the most terrible evil can be overcome, Bishop David A. Zubik told the crowd from podium set before the makeshift memorial that mourners had created next to the fitness center, in the Great Southern Shopping Center.

"May your love bring us all together," the bishop said, appealing to God. "May that love bring darkness into light, hurt into healing, death into life. ... Where evil has brought death, may your spirit bring new life."

For many people in the crowd, however, the memory of their lost friends was still raw and painful. Some mourners brought fresh roses to lay next to those from last week, withered now and sodden from recent storms. They walked away in tears, their faces set.

Three women -- Heidi Overmier, 46, of Carnegie; Elizabeth Gannon, 49, of Green Tree; and Jody Billingsley, 37, of Mt. Lebanon -- were killed when Scott resident George Sodini walked into a crowded aerobics class Aug. 4 and began shooting. Nine other women were injured.

Last night's event, organized by Collier resident Doreen Ducsay, brought together police and emergency medical services from all over the South Hills, including many of the people who responded to the shooting. To help people dealing with the emotional stress of responding to or experiencing the shooting, crisis management teams and several chaplains also attended.

People still struggling with the traumatic aftermath of the shooting should remember that they can overcome their pain by representing Jesus's love for the world, said the Rev. Josephine Whitely-Fields, as people in the crowd began lighting each other's candles.

"We will let our light shine wherever we are, wherever we go," she said. "We will not be overcome by evil, but we will overcome evil with good -- with good thoughts, with good acts of mercy."

For Jackie Mackenzie, owner of a Fantastic Sams hair salon near the fitness club, attending the vigil was defying Mr. Sodini's hateful legacy.

"I just don't want this guy to win," said Ms. Mackenzie, who took several club members home after they ran into her salon after the shooting.

For the people who were inside the club, the vigil provided a kind of closure, but an imperfect one.

Justine Metzger, a 25-year-old Mount Washington resident, was one of five women and three men who barricaded themselves into a supply closet during the shooting. The shooting, she said, has unearthed flashbacks to a near-death experience several years ago. She was part of a 20-car pileup on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 2003, in which several people died.

And while she attended the vigil in support of shooting victims and the community, she's not sure it will stop the flashbacks or change her feelings about the club.

"I don't know if I can go back in there," she said.