This year’s Life is Beautiful Mass Oct. 19 will honor two women who have spent their lives helping others live theirs.
Judy Crowninshield will receive the Culture of Life Medal. A parishioner of St. John the Evangelist in Severna Park, she has spent 40 years – 20 of those years as director – at Women’s Care Mary’s Center helping women choose life for their unborn babies.
Ellen Salter of Michigan will receive the Life is Beautiful Award. A Catholic Speakers Organization pro-life speaker, Salter gives presentations about the blessing her 22-year-old daughter Meghan has been to her family and the world. Meghan has been unable to eat, speak, move or breathe on her own since she was an infant.
Both women will be recognized during the Mass, which will be celebrated by Archbishop William E. Lori at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore. The Mass is held in October as it is Respect Life Month.
Judith Crowninshield – Culture of Life Medal
Sitting in the Women’s Care Mary’s Center’s conference room in Glen Burnie, Crowninshield, who officially retired from her position as director in August, still keeps busy at the center, helping with the nonprofit’s gala and wherever else she is needed.
“I’m the 12th of 15 children and the only one who didn’t have children,” Crowninshield said. “God had something else in mind. I am happy to do what I can for Mary’s Center. I am grateful that I could. It has been a passion.”
For Crowninshield, the work done at Mary’s Center is “God’s work.”
“Killing is wrong,” Crowninshield said. “There is not any good reason for somebody to have an abortion. Really, there is not.”
Women who come to Mary’s Center are provided free pregnancy tests and limited ultrasounds. They are given information on the numerous services available to them, from adoption to keeping the child.
“We are there for them. We are there to help them,” Crowninshield said. “The ultrasounds, when a woman sees, it does make a difference if they see the baby in the womb. When they hear that heartbeat, it’s natural. It is unnatural for a mother to kill her baby.”
Mary’s Center continues helping mothers once the baby is born by providing free clothing, diapers, wipes, formula, car seats and more.
“We can’t be everything to everybody,” Crowninshield said. “We feel like this is a wonderful place to serve God’s people. It’s a nice place to be.”
Crowninshield, according to Linda Rhinehart, a Mary’s Center board member, is “the face of Mary’s Center.”
“So many people know her and come to Mary’s Center because of that connection,” Rhinehart said. “She is a kind and gentle person. I know her as wanting the best for Mary’s Center and for everyone that volunteers and for the babies. The babies and saving lives.”
As to the award, Crowninshield is “really honored.”
“It was totally unexpected,” Crowninshield said. “I always say we’re doing God’s work here. As long as we’re doing what he tells us, he sends us what we need.”
Ellen Salter – Life is Beautiful Award
When Ellen Salter felt Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary asking her in prayer if she would be willing to carry a child with special needs, she did not hesitate to say “yes.”
“He did not reveal what my joys or sufferings would be,” Salter wrote in an email. “To be clear, I did not ask Jesus or my Mother Mary what these sufferings would be, I simply trusted them.”
To her surprise, her fourth child, daughter Meghan, was born healthy. Within a few short months, however, her health began to decline. Meghan, now 22, cannot breathe, speak, move or eat on her own.
“Even in the midst of carrying this cross, she brings souls closer to God without even speaking a word,” Salter wrote. “Meghan has brought people back to their faith, back to confession and helped deepen their relationship with Christ.”
Salter now shares the story of Meghan’s life with audiences, speaking at pro-life conferences, Legatus Chapter dinners, Catholic medical conferences and Catholic parishes and schools.
“Speaking to one person or an auditorium full of God’s children brings my suffering to a redemptive state in order to save souls for God, and yet not through any merit of my own. It helps me to grow closer to God,” Salter said. “Also, helping others to bear their cross makes my heart burst with joy; it brings me much fulfillment in knowing that Jesus is pleased.”
Salter’s Baltimore appearance will be her first since her husband Mike Salter’s death in December. When Mike was diagnosed with cancer in July 2023, she was flooded with speaking requests but could not honor them.
“For a year and a half, I just took care of both of them with every breath I had,” Salter said. “I don’t go around searching. This is what God wants me to do.”
She admitted, however, that the Baltimore visit will be challenging.
“Nothing comes into fruition unless God wills it,” Salter said. “Although this opportunity will surface great pain in verbalizing our family’s loss, the goal is to bring those who are also suffering a loss into the fullness of faith and trust in God’s plan.”
It is God and her love for Jesus who gives her strength and the gifts to continue, she said, noting that iIt is the “unfailing power of the God-given gift” of his grace that guides her heart.
“I lean daily into Jesus to help strengthen me and give me courage,” she said. “For when I am weak, Jesus is my strength.”
Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org
