PRO-LIFE TWITTER STORM: The Voice of the Turtledove Has Been Heard in Our Lands!

by Susan Fox

Read the story behind the group that launched 82,000 tweets in one day with the hashtag #PraytoEndAbortion.  This Pro-life Twitter Storm took the phrase to the top of the list of tweeted phrases in the United States and Fourth in the world on Dec. 12, 2013.

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings, announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation, and saying to Zion, “Your God is King!” (Isaiah 52:7)

Who is She?

Who is She who comes forth as the Morning Rising, Fair as the Moon, Bright as the Sun, and terrible as an Army in Battle Array?

Indeed, who is she who waltzed through the Internet Thursday, December 12, 2013, walking on the voices of thousands of ordinary people from Ghana to the United States?

#PraytoEndAbortion was the top trending hashtag on Twitter  Thursday night in the United States
and fourth in the world because thousands of people tweeted and re-tweeted the phrase on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. “The voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.” (Song of Songs 2:12) The voice of the turtledove is associated with Our Lady’s voice in the Liturgy of the Hours. Doesn’t that describe what occurred?

Just a few weeks ago I didn’t even like Twitter because I am a very long-winded writer, and tweets are very short, no more than 140 characters. A hashtag is a phrase prefixed with the symbol #. Hashtags make it possible to group messages, and rank the most highly re-tweeted phrases.  Now I can’t believe that a couple thousand ordinary people launched 82,000 tweets with the words "Pray to End Abortion" in one day!  

When I was lobbying for the pro-life cause at the United Nations in 2000, I met a delegate from Sudan. She wanted to know who was I because everybody at the UN represents a group. I told her I was just an ordinary American housewife, not paid by any group. But I was invited to participate by the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute. The woman’s face lit up. She burst out laughing. “Why you are Nobody,” she said. “You have great power.”

And that’s what happened Thursday. “Nobody” spoke and everybody heard the message “Pray to end Abortion.”  The silent unborn voices of millions of human beings were also heard. Some of them may be born because of Nobody’s Twitter Storm.

Years ago, a priest told me not to worry about what’s in the daily newspaper. He said, “Listen to the news in heaven!” There were 2,544 people signed up to tweet on Thursday, but many others joined the Twitter Storm in progress. These people closely resembled St. Juan Diego, the Native American, who met Our Lady of Guadalupe in person one Saturday morning in 1531 on Tepeyac Hill outside the modern day Mexico City.  

Why? Because the beautiful lady of “unearthly grandeur,” wearing clothing “radiant as the sun,” addressed her little Juan as “the humblest of my children.”  Such were the 2,544 signed up to tweet.

Not only did Our Lady see Juan that way, but so did the Bishop of Mexico, to whom she sent her little Juan. “Come another time, and I will listen at leisure,” said Franciscan Bishop Fray Juan de Zumarraga. That was polite speak for “Go Away. I think you are crazy.” Juan was “Nobody.” But Our Lady assigned him the task of getting a Church built on Tepeyac Hill outside the modern day Mexico City.

Juan thoroughly agreed with Our Lady’s assessment of himself as the “humblest" of her sons. When he returned to report his failure, “He said, “My Lady, my maiden, I presented your message to the Bishop, but it seemed that he did not think it was the truth. For this reason I beg you to entrust your message to someone more illustrious who might convey it in order that they may believe it, for I am only an insignificant man.”

Many probably thought the same thing when they undertook to tweet for life. Twitter shut me down after 30 minutes of tweeting. Desperate tweets came from nuns saying, “I can’t tweet any more. Re-tweet!” And the second time Twitter shut me down, I had to promise Twitter I would never do it again!

Our Lady sent Juan Diego back to the reluctant bishop a second time. This time the bishop openly stated he needed proof.

I went back to the computer to tweet again, and so did thousands of others.

Then Juan Diego’s uncle became very ill, and he set out to get a priest to hear his confession, but he decided he’d better go the other way around the hill less his mission get interrupted by the little maiden who kept sending him to the bishop!

And I realized I had to go to the grocery store to get something for dinner as it is the duty of my state in life. I ran to Costco.

But Our Lady met Juan Diego on the other side of the hill, and assured him his uncle would be okay. “Listen and understand, my humblest son. There is nothing to frighten and distress you. Do not let your heart be troubled and let nothing upset you. Is it not I, your Mother, who is here? Are you not under my protection?” 

And I sang the “Star Spangled Banner” out loud in Costco. I had never felt so hopeful for my country in my life. Nobody looked at me like I was crazy. This was a miracle.

Then Our Lady sent Juan Diego to the top of the hill to pick Castilian roses in the middle of a bitter frost. Juan Diego was astonished, but he picked the roses and brought them to Our Lady to arrange in his tilma (mantle). At last, this was the sign needed to convince the bishop. And convince him it did! Especially when the roses fell onto the floor in front of the bishop and left a perfect image of the lady of “unearthly grandeur,” wearing clothing “radiant as the sun” on the tilma itself! It is a miraculous picture, which has lasted almost 500 years and is still is beautifully intact. The Church was built. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is visited by several million people every year.

But the best part of the story is yet to come. It is a story of the wife of a New Jersey chiropractor, who was given a mission by Our Lady of Guadalupe, and an important sign -- red roses in December! And surprise, surprise, she felt terribly unqualified to undertake the task.

On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 2011, Esmeralda Kiczek woke up and heard Our Lady speak in her heart: “She wanted me to find a way to pray the Holy Rosary at the March for Life with everyone there.” This would be the March for Life on Jan. 23, 2012.  “She also told me that Jan. 23, 2012 will mark the beginning of the end of abortion.” She and her husband Dr. Brian Kiczek rejoiced at this news.

But despite their joy, Esmeralda had a problem. “I did not know where to start or what to do. I felt like the most unqualified person to do this kind of mission. I prayed for a few days and on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe I finally got the courage to contact the March for Life.” Perhaps Our Lady regarded Esmeralda as the “humblest of her daughters?” Yes?  To her surprise, Miss Nellie Gray, the founder of the March for Life, personally answered the phone and calmly accepted the news that Our Lady wanted everyone to pray the Rosary, and that the Rosary was the answer to the end of abortion.

In fact the phone call seemed to answer a question Miss Gray had been asking in her own heart: “Why has abortion not ended?”  So Esmeralda told her the answer is the Rosary. And one of the signs was Esmeralda's own red roses were blooming gloriously outside her front door in December in New Jersey. Her family knew it was a miracle, "but we did not know what it meant.”

The Kiczek's Roses blooming in December

Then the story of Juan Diego climbing to the top of Tepeyac hill to cut Castilian roses in a frost in early December in 1531 finally clicked with Brian and Esmeralda Kiczek. They understood the meaning behind their own December roses.

They weren’t able to pray the Rosary with everyone at the March for Life, but they had a room in the convention’s hotel.  They called it the Rosary Room. And people prayed the Rosary there at all times during the March. “Everyone that came was really a prayer warrior,” Esmeralda wrote in her blog, http://www.theendofabortionmovement.com.

The Kiczek's March for Life poster

And from that experience she and her husband were inspired to start a group dedicated to pray the Holy Rosary to end abortion, contraception, and euthanasia, called “The End of Abortion Movement: The Rosary is the Key.”

And it was that group -- led by Dr. Brian and Esmeralda Kiczek, which organized the #PraytoEndAbortion  TwitterStorm on Dec. 12, 2013.

Incidentally, Our Lady of Guadalupe is regarded as the Patroness of the Unborn, and many miracles have been worked in connection with her image, a copy of which is sent around the United States. In the 1990s, one of the members of the Junior Legion of Mary in Renton, Washington, felt the heartbeat of the Christ Child in Our Lady’s womb in the picture. I was there. I witnessed it. The symbolism of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s dress is that of a young woman who is pregnant. Therefore Jesus is in the picture too, as yet too small to be seen.

Little Jesus, He’s there to remind us, #PraytoEndAbortion. And He loves to remind His mother to pick her disciples from the “humblest of her children.”


JOIN US DEC. 12, 2014 FOR ANOTHER TWITTERSTORM TO END ABORTION. WE HAVE CHANGED THE HASHTAG SLIGHTLY. IT'S NOW #Pray2EndAbortion. Follow 30 Twitter accounts a day from CatholicsFollowBack @CatholicsFollow and they will follow back. Build your twitter base so that your tweets on Dec. 12 will have a wider audience. For more information on this new Twitterstorm go to #Pray2EndAbortion

If YOU would like to pray to end abortion, contraception and euthanasia, go to The End of Abortion Movement   and sign up! You just have to add the intention of ending abortion, contraception and euthanasia to your daily Rosary. And if you don't pray the Rosary yet, why not start? God bless you.