IMAGE: CNS photo/James Ramos, Texas Cat
By James Ramos
HOUSTON (CNS) — Baseball bats
and rosary beads were the only thing on Tonya Killian’s mind as she walked
toward Minute Maid Park for Game 3 of the 2017 World Series.
A longtime Houston Astros fan
and parishioner at Mary Queen Catholic Church in Friendswood, Killian was on a
mission to buy rosaries custom made for the World Series by members of Annunciation
Catholic Church.
Her Hail Mary attempt was a success: She bought the last two
handmade rosaries for sale that day, and maybe even an Astros World Series
victory.
Tradition holds that if the
parish — which sits close to the ballpark across the street —
sells out of its rosaries on game day, the Astros will win.
No one really knows if
Killian’s purchase guaranteed the Astros’ 5-3 victory over the Los Angeles
Dodgers that Friday night, Oct. 27. But nobody could have expected the wild 13-12 Astros
win two days later on Sunday night, even after Saturday’s loss. Game 5 saw the
two teams slug it out for more than five hours and into extra innings Oct. 29.
Going into Game 6 at Dodger Stadium Oct. 31, the Astros were leading 3 games to 2.
These rosaries were special to
Killian, not just because they were Astros-colored. Killian’s family suffered
during Hurricane Harvey: Two of her family members’ homes in Dickinson were
flooded with more than 2 feet of water during the storm.
Now more than two months since
the storm dropped more than 50 inches of rain along the Texas Gulf Coast, she
said some of her family is able to finally return home. The rosary means a lot
to her, she said.
“I’ve broken down more
times in the last month and a half than in the last two years,” she told the
Texas Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.
Dickinson was one of the hardest hit areas in Houston. “It’s cleaned up,
but as you drive by, you can see straight through these homes.”
Still, Killian said the Astros’
World Series run has been thrilling to watch, something the city needed after
Harvey’s devastation.
“To watch the Astros play,
to me, is like watching kids doing what they love and having fun,” she
said.
Parish staff and volunteers said
the rosaries were in high demand, with 120 to 150 available during each of the
three World Series games in Houston. The line stretched down the block with a half
hour wait just to enter the parish’s sidewalk pop-up gift shop.
Father Paul Felix, pastor of the
147-year-old parish, opened the doors to the historic church for all to visit
Oct. 27. He beamed as visitors milled in and out. Inside, dozens stopped for a
quiet moment of prayer before heading into the ballpark for the game.
Earlier that day, Lance
McCullers, former MLB pitcher, lit a few candles inside the church for his son
Lance McCullers Jr., a pitcher for the Astros. McCullers Jr. was crucial during
the 2017 American League Championship against the New York Yankees and helped
send the Astros to their second World Series.
Father Felix said the World
Series was a prime time to evangelize the culture with the rosary, especially
during the centennial of the Marian apparitions at Fatima.
His collar seemed to garner a
double-take every few minutes or the occasional genial nod from the tens of
thousands of baseball fans decked out in their team colors who streamed by the
church.
Between blessing rosaries,
Father Felix stopped to greet parishioners and the non-Catholics who have come
to know him and his parishioners throughout the baseball season. The parish has
been selling rosaries outside their front door all year long to help raise
funds for parish renovations.
The church, designed by Nicholas
J. Clayton, is the oldest surviving and continuously used church building in
the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and is need of repair. Father Felix
encouraged visitors to help recognize history and join the effort to help
renovate the church.
Incarnate Word Academy, founded
in 1873 by the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, adjacent to
the church also celebrated the Astros’ World Series run with sidewalk art that
welcomed baseball fans.
The sisters are longtime fans of
the Astros, especially after the team left the Astrodome and moved downtown in
2000 across the street.
Soon it was time to close up
shop and as the volunteers began to clean up, the 6 p.m. Angelus bell rang loudly
hundreds of feet above. Everyone stopped what they were doing to pray together.
Then, not seconds after the
closing Glory Be, a nearby patient but faithful fan yelled out a question:
“Did y’all sell out!?”
Happy to confirm, the volunteers
said “Yes!” The Orange-clad fan cheered and headed for the stadium to tell
others the good news.
– – –
Ramos is a staff writer and
designer for the Texas Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Archdiocese of
Galveston-Houston.
– – –
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