At Houston church, Astros rosaries bring together faith, baseball
Inside Annunciation Catholic Church, there are vaulted ceilings and gothic arches, frescoes depicting the Angel Gabriel’s apparition to the Virgin Mary and majestic stained glass windows recounting the mysteries of the rosary.
There are 149-year-old pews, as old as the structure itself. A 1924 Pilcher’s Sons Opus organ in the music loft. The smell of wax and sulfur from burning prayer candles.
And, in a small alcove, just off the side of the main sanctuary, on a table draped in black cloth, there are dozens of rosaries crafted from beads and crystals and pearls.
All in orange and blue.
The colors, any local baseball fan could tell you, of the Houston Astros, the boys of summer who occupy the ballpark just across the street, the 2017 World Series champions whose run to the top lifted up a city knocked down by Hurricane Harvey.
The team whose devoted fan base, in a roundabout way, is now helping the historic church raise money for much-needed renovations through the sale of those Astros-themed rosaries.
The story of the rosaries, like the story of Houston itself, is one of ingenuity and grit, of resilience and faith restored. It weaves together people like Father Paul Felix, the Annunciation pastor whose family has long been a part of the city, and Maria Esther Aguilera, the rosary-maker who immigrated here from Mexico.
It is the tale of how an off-hand notion became a “big whatchamadoodle,” said Elsie Hernandez, the church’s development director, quoting — appropriately enough — a line from the 1951 movie “Angels in the Outfield.”