V.J.E.
During National Vocation Awareness Week, we are featuring the story behind the religious names of our five newly professed sisters. Today we want share with you the story behind the name of Sr. Alaina Marie Therese Furman, HMSS.
Sr. Marie Therese was born and raised in a Catholic family, growing up in northern Virginia with her parents and younger brother and surrounded by many extended family members in the area. She graduated from college in 2009 and earned her Master’s degree in Library & Information Science in 2020. It was in the midst of her graduate studies that she began to follow the Lord’s prompting to discern a religious vocation. Over the years of discerning, her relationship with the Lord grew and deepened; and He opened her heart to hear and accept His loving invitation to be His alone in religious life.
Prayer for Mercedarian Vocations: O Mary, Mother of Christ the Eternal High Priest, and Mother of the Church, we come to you and humbly ask you to awaken new religious vocations for the service of the people of God, especially to the Mercedarian family. Strengthen our Catholic homes in faith which bears fruit; so that disciples and witnesses of your Son may be harvested from them. Touch the hearts of our young people, invite and bring them to the Heart of Jesus. May they grow in his warmth and in the mystery of total self-giving in service of the Gospel. Mother of Mercy, our Mother, bless us with holy vocations to the religious life and priesthood. Amen.
To Evangelize with Mary in the Light of the Eucharist