St. Joseph's Catholic Church

11730 Old Saint Augustine Road Jacksonville, Florida 32258 (904) 268-5422

FIRST SATURDAY

For almost ten years parishioners from St. Joseph's have prayed and picketed in front of an abortion "clinic" on University Beach Blvd on the first Saturday of each month. In the first few months of 2008 we noticed that the abortion site didn't appear to be open on the Saturday mornings that we are out there. A little research revealed that they are open the remaining Saturdays so we have decided to expand our coverage to include the second Saturday of month. Within seven months of our expanded coverage they now appear to be closed on that Saturday as well. So far we have spread ourselves a little too thin to expand to the third Saturday but we are optimistic we will get more people involved and that we can keep the pressure on this abortionist to eventually shutdown.

On the first Saturday we attend Mass and Benediction at the Historic Church at 8:00 in the morning and then carpool to the site. On the second Saturday there isn't a morning Mass so we just meet at the site. If you have never been to a sidewalk witness this may be an interesting experience for you. People honk their horns and wave at us in supportive gestures or sometimes they wave in unsupportive gestures but we do get people’s attention and that is very important. The media loves to portray those of us who are pro-life as a fanatical fringe group. By taking to the streets (as Pope John Paul II has called for ALL of us to do.), by displaying pro-life bumper stickers and license plates, and by supporting pro-life candidates we demonstrate that abortion is not as socially acceptable as the media would have us believe. The more people we have actively fighting the culture of death the more people will be encouraged to join us in that fight.

Some have questioned whether or not this public demonstration does any good. We have heard from a parishioner who works for an adoption service that one pregnant woman changed her mind on abortion after "seeing people picketing an abortion clinic on University Blvd" and decided to offer her child up for adoption  For the most part we are throwing seeds into the wind and pray that somebody driving by may have a change of heart. We see a lot of women drive in and never get out of their cars. They park for a few minutes and then drive away. It is possible that we have saved quite a few lives. God only knows. And this effort certainly isn’t particularly pleasant. It is a tedious two hours walking in circles along a busy highway often in the cold, heat, or rain.  Granted this is in few people’s comfort zone but our Lord Jesus was certainly not in His comfort zone when He died upon the cross. So we pick up our crosses and sacrifice several hours of our Saturday mornings in the hope we may possible change a heart or save a life.