It could have been an 8 a.m. weekday Mass at St. Peter in Butler or a Mass at 7 in the chapel at St. Kilian Parish in Cranberry.

Thankfully it was not. It was in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in the Normandy region of northwest France.

But the scene would have been starkly familiar to any attendee of a morning Mass worldwide: a smattering of the ultra-faithful, most in their later years, some wearing the clothes of career devotees — nuns and priests — gathered in observance of their religion’s sacramental rite of holy communion.

Apparently there were no altar boys in attendance. It would have been all the more tragic if they hade been.

They gathered as they do around the world every morning to summon the grace and mercy of their creator. Sacrificing their time and morning energy in devotion to the spiritual betterment of their world.

No call to arms. No days of rage. That would be preposterous.

It took no bravery for two men armed with knives and guns to slip in behind them, advance on tiptoe and then storm the handful of old people. The provocation was as cowardly as it was horrifying.

They took five hostages and slit the throat of the 84-year-old priest offering the morning Mass.

They recorded the slaying on video. They shouted “Allahu akbar!” while doing it. They slashed another man in his 80s, who survived by feigning death.

Then they stormed out the front door, guns held to the temples of two nuns they used as human shields before French SWAT troops gunned them down.

Parts of their scheme were almost comical in their stupidity, including a phony suicide belt covered in tin foil.

It was not known which attacker wore the fake bomb: Adel Kermiche, the 19-year-old local boy who had tried twice going to Syria to join up with ISIS terrorists; or Abdel Malik, another radicalized French teen. Both had professed to being “soldiers of ISIS”.

It’s particularly disturbing that Kermiche had been under house arrest on preliminary charges of terrorism. His tracking bracelet was turned off four hours a day allowing Kermiche a regular period of free movement. A police official said the bracelet was deactivated at the time the priest was slain.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. The Islamic terror group has threatened London and Washington, D.C., saying both cities are targets for attack in the near future.

Hubert Wulfranc, the mayor of the French village that lost its priest, made an extraordinary appeal, one which could apply universally. Speaking in front of the town hall, Wulfranc said, “I told (French President François Hollande) that it was absolutely necessary that this doesn’t happen again. Let us be the last to cry.”

This can be attained only if the fight is taken to — and focused relentlessly on — the Islamic State.