What Our Lady Can Do with a Little Bag of Beads
The Miraculous Closing of the Last Abortion Facility in Corpus Christ, Texas
For many years the pro-life community of Corpus Christi, Texas and surrounding areas prayed in front of the last remaining abortion business left in the town. There were countless novenas and Masses offered along with visitations of a relic from the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Women and men spent many hours in silent prayer standing on the sidewalk at the busy intersection of Morgan Avenue and the Crosstown Freeway.
The clientele at this particular facility was predominantly Hispanic. I think I can safely say at least 75% of the young women and men who went through those doors were Spanish speaking clients. The doctor was Hispanic as well as many of the workers inside.
We noticed that many cars and trucks that drove into the single driveway had rosaries hanging from their rearview mirrors. The rosary is revered in the Spanish community even if you are not a practicing Catholic or if you belong to a different denomination.
I have a dear friend who shared my devotion to the rosary. I felt called to somehow take Our Lady into that abortion facility. My friend was an avid rosary maker. She made them with real crystal beads and medals and beautiful crucifixes. Every rosary was totally unique. We had all the materials and final products blessed by our parish priest.
Our idea was that we would put together little gift bags with pretty ribbons of either blue or pink containing one handmade rosary and a little prayer card explaining how to pray the rosary.
We legally could not approach the cars as they pulled in but if the windows were down (in South Texas if you didn’t have air conditioning your windows were down) we could speak to the passengers. We asked them if they would like a free gift and showed them a sample of the rosaries.
The first day we tried this we did not know what to expect. We had about 30 bags ready to give away.
My friend took one side of the driveway and I took the other. When the clients began to arrive we were amazed that they actually stopped. We smiled and asked if they would like one and many of the cars took more than one for family members.
What would happen next we could never have imagined. We could see them park and then get out of the car and take the little bag into the clinic. At that point we knew Our Lady was “inside”. The guy would sometimes come back out alone but he never had the little bag with him.
That day one of the couples came back out and got in their vehicle and pulled up to where we were standing and held up the rosary and yelled, “This rosary saved this baby!” Everyone around cheered and cried and rushed the car to hug the young couple who were in tears.
The manager of the facility walked out of the front doors and stared at us as if wondering what just happened.
We had done nothing illegal.
In the following weeks we gave away at least 30 rosary bags a week.
One afternoon one of the workers came out to where we stood and asked if she could have a rosary and one for her mom. She cast her eyes down and said thank you and turned and walked back in.
Another afternoon when the abortionist arrived with his pretty young wife he stopped the car and she rolled down her window and asked if she could have a rosary. Needless to say there were many tears shed by the two of us that day.
I believe that Hispanics by nature are a very religious people. They are targeted in many low income neighborhoods with abortion businesses. Their large extended families are very powerful with their approval or disapproval of an unplanned pregnancy. We saw many mothers and even whole families drive up and drop off the young mother-to-be.
We did not offer them tracts of abortion statistics and pictures of the developing fetus.
We simply tried to give to them the love of the Mother of us all.
Who knows how many hearts were touched? I know ours were.
The facility closed last year. There are no more abortion businesses in the Corpus Christi area.
