Four years ago, Elaine Barker saw a newspaper ad about a pro-life sculpture, and she became convinced that God wanted her to get it for her parish.

But even the smallest version of the design, titled simply Life by Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz, costs $35,000.

Barker, 89, belongs to the same church she was baptized in during the 1930s. Now called All Saints Parish, it’s located in Haverhill, Massachusetts, a former mill town of about 67,000 roughly 35 miles north of Boston.

She asked the pastor, Father Chris Wallace, if the parish would hold fundraisers. But he said, “No,” on the grounds that the parish isn’t affluent and wouldn’t be able to afford it.

But that wasn’t the end of the story for Barker.

“She was very persistent. She was convinced God was calling her to do this,” Father Wallace told the Register. “So I said, ‘All right, if you find the funding, we’ll put it in the church.’”

Sure enough, the 600-pound bronze sculpture has arrived. It’s scheduled to be unveiled during Mother’s Day weekend.

“Turns out, I think it was God calling her to do this, and God provided. And here we are,” Father Wallace said. “It’s a great story of faith.”

Step by Step

So how did this New England great-grandmother manage to raise tens of thousands of dollars?

First, she called the artist, whose studio is in St. Jacobs, Ontario.

“I love life. And I heard a voice that told me to call Tim, and I just listened to the voice,” Barker told the Register.

She and Schmalz, himself a Catholic, hit it off over the telephone. But still, she didn’t have the sculpture.

In July 2024, she attended the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, not knowing that the artist would be there. They reconnected, had a good conversation, and had some pictures taken.

Schmalz called meeting Barker “an amazing spiritual experience.”

“Elaine, I think, is like so many faithful Catholics that are spitfires for the Gospel and for our faith. She has such a passion for pro-life issues and for getting the word — or the art — out there,” Schmalz told the Register.

“She has that creative energy that makes her seem very, very much a friend of mine,” he said.

But that didn’t get her a sculpture either.

The turning point was a pilgrimage to Rome in April 2025, during which she visited (for the second time) a version of the sculpture she wanted, at the Church of St. Marcellus on the Cors (San Marcello al Corso), which had been installed in May 2022.

Her fellow pilgrims on the trip heard her speak about her quest. Not long after she got home, she got a call from one of them. The person promised to send a check for $35,000 to the parish for the sculpture, on condition of anonymity.

Although she now had the funds for the sculpture, Barker later learned she’d need a base for it. She raised more than the $7,000 needed for it, thanks to her contacts with a local chamber of commerce. (Barker, a widow of a pharmacist who has four children, three grandchildren and one great-grandson, still runs an invitation business she founded in 1976, though it has since been scaled down.)

Why ‘Life’?

Life, which in some sources is titled “Life Monument” or “National Life Monument,” depicts a pregnant woman (widely considered to be Mary, the mother of Jesus) with a mirror on the outside of her womb so that someone looking at it on the same level will see a reflection of himself.

“I wanted to create a sculpture that presents the sacredness and beauty of human life,” said Schmalz, 56. He added that, for Catholics, it is not enough to merely be against abortion.

“We’re not only fighting for the unborn child, but we’re also fighting for humanity to be human,” Schmalz said.

A version of the sculpture was installed in May 2023 on the campus of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., as EWTN News reported at the time.

Schmalz said that other versions of the sculpture are scheduled to be installed on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol and in the Holy Land — in Manger Square near the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

But the Life sculpture at All Saints in Haverhill is the first to be installed in a parish church in the United States.

The sculpture is slated for an alcove to the left of the altar of the church, which has a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe during the Advent and Christmas liturgical seasons. On the wall above is a tapestry of the Divine Mercy image, with red and blue rays — representing blood and water flowing from Jesus’ heart.

“God’s mercy reaches out to everybody, and no matter what we’ve done, even if it’s the wrong side of a life-and-death issue, our Savior is waiting for us,” Father Wallace said.

Barker said the parish plans to offer miniature versions of the sculpture for donations of $30 for the smaller one and $50 for the bigger one, with a portion of the proceeds going to a local pro-life pregnancy center.

The Register asked Barker what she hopes the sculpture accomplishes.

She said, “I hope that it will help people to believe that the sanctity of life is so important, and it begins right at conception, when they see that baby, Jesus Christ, in the womb of Mary, his mother.”