For six minutes, the sounds of an East Baltimore spring danced through the silence: birds chirping, a helicopter flying overhead, children shouting “Mamá.”

People huddled in jackets and sweaters before an altar of six crosses for the six men killed in the Key Bridge collapse: Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, Carlos Daniel Hernández, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez, José Mynor López and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera.

“We will never forget these men who were serving Baltimore — on a day which felt much like today — ensuring that bridge was safe for all of us,” Father Ako Walker, pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus, considered the spiritual center of Baltimore’s Spanish-speaking Catholic community, said to the crowd in Spanish. “They paid the highest price with their lives.”

Walker and the community wanted a simple ceremony, focused on the Gospel and the six men. People said prayers and sang hymns. No public officials were there. Some of the victims’ families were. A crowd of about 50 grew and more than doubled; more chairs had to be brought out.

A year ago, the families of the six men were awaiting news about their loved ones, who, maybe 48 hours before, left home for an overnight shift fixing potholes on an old bridge. Not long before they should have driven home, a container ship felled the deck they stood on in a matter of seconds.

Now there are wives trying to live without husbands, children growing up without fathers, parents who had to endure the pain of burying a son, Walker said.

For the families, he said, “the pain remains alive as if they had died yesterday.”

The service began with a procession of flags. The colors of their native lands — Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — followed those of their chosen home: the United States. Flagbearers placed them behind the six wooden crosses adorned with construction vests as the setting sun illuminated Sacred Heart’s steeple at golden hour.

“Weeping may endure the night, but joy comes with the morning,” Walker said, invoking Scripture.

The collapse of the Key Bridge changed Maryland. It also shined a light on the outsize role immigrants play in construction jobs and the maintenance of U.S. infrastructure — something that many who pack Sacred Heart every Sunday know well.

The night’s Gospel reading dealt with Jesus’ death and resurrection, which Christians will soon celebrate on Easter Sunday.

“Jesus says, ‘He who loves me is he who gives his life for his friends,’ and I believe that’s what they did. They gave their lives for us, for the entire city of Baltimore, for all the United States,” said Father Alipio Flores, associate pastor of Sacred Heart.

“They came to this country as immigrants to do honest work and provide for their families, but they had to give their lives,” Flores said.

Volunteers lit their candles, then began passing the flame to those around them. “Come, Holy Spirit, come,” the crowd sang in Spanish.

Walker would invite the crowd to raise their hands toward the families of the victims and offer a collective blessing, then share in a small gathering of food and drinks. But, first, a collective silence — some closed their eyes, others hung their heads and stared at their individual flames. The sounds of children playing next door on the grounds of Archbishop Borders, a bilingual parochial school, broke it.

Six crosses for six men, six minutes of silence cut by the distant laughter of children and birds signaling a rebirth — death and life in divine dance.