EWTN Visited NunsMenlo!

This past week, we had a surprise visit from our dear friends and benefactors, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Soeherman, who came  from Alabama for a family visit.  With them was their son, Fr. Miguel Marie of our Lady, Mediatrix of all grace, MFVA.
Mr. Soeherman graciously volunteered a countless number of hours to help in our library some time ago.  Their son, Fr. Miguel Marie, a member of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word, found his vocation to the priesthood while working as a System Engineer for Electronic Data Systems. 



We fondly remembered Fr. Miguel Marie’s vocation story and one could say that it was through his parents’ prayerful witness and fidelity to God that helped to nurture his vocation.  One year when his parents went on a trip abroad, they asked him to pray for them.  So each day he would stop by a Church on his lunch hour to pray for them during Mass.  Little did he know, the Holy Spirit took these opportunities to speak to his heart and made known the lofty vocation to which God was calling him.  It took much discernment, as he wanted to have a big family, but yielding to the Spirit's lead, he finally entered the  

Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word (MFVA.)

 

Your priestly blessing please Father...

Father Miguel Marie was ordained to the priesthood on June 5, 2004 and currently serves as the Community Vicar, MFVA Council member, Local Servant at Ephesus House in Hanceville, Alabama and Novice Master.  Many of his homilies can be viewed online and heard through the Youtube. 

We’re grateful to God for Fr. Miguel Marie’s talents and generosity in giving himself totally to serving God and his people, after the example of his parents.  May our Blessed Mother continue to show Father Miguel Marie her motherly love and bless him with abundant graces and strength, that he may guide others in the way of truth and salvation. 

*  Our Sister Mary Isabel is an Indonesian-the same nationality as the Soehermans-so this was quite a happy visit and reunion for all of us.  Even Sister Joseph Marie was quite happy and impressed when Fr. Miguel Marie prayed with her the Hail Mary in Vietnamese!  Father has promised to learn more prayers in Vietnamese so as to pray with her on his future visit to our Monastery.  Deo Gratias!

This is how we know what love is:

Christ gave up his life for us;

and we too must give up our lives for our brothers.

(1Jn 3:16)