Marian Servants Unite with Christ

Mary brings people looking for a fresh start to Christ, who provides healing, freedom and purpose in life. Following the Blessed Mother’s example, the Marian Servants unite themselves with Jesus as workers in the vineyard helping to save souls.

The Marian Servants of the Eucharist in Baton Rouge and Marian Servants of the Visitation in Hammond are communities of the Marian Servants of Divine Providence, a public association of Christian faithful in Clearwater, Florida.  Their mission is to help bring Catholics to a deeper understanding of their vocation and mission in Christ. They do this by offering spiritual direction, retreats and intercessory prayer. 

The member’s own journeys with Mary have provided them with rich experiences to help others.
 Marian Servant member Tonia Okpalobi grew up in a faith-filled household in Nigeria.

“Life was very structured, time for prayers first thing in the morning, at meals and after meals, school, as education was very paramount and rosary at night before bedtime. Sunday Mass, very special, all dressed up,” said Okpalobi.

 Her routines in boarding school (high school) never changed. 

“As a teenager, college student to working adult I was not swayed by youthful exuberance but persisted in my faith even after I left Nigeria and came to the United States (in 1987) to further my education,” Okpalobi said.
 She added, “God’s grace propelled me through. Every step of the way God was revealing my path to me and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our mother, I was forging ahead.”

She was a student at Montclair State College in New Jersey when she met her husband through a good friend and then moved to New Orleans. When Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005, she and her husband and four children moved to Baton Rouge where she is a parishioner at St. George Church and serves in the Council of Ministers. 

It was at daily Mass at St. George that Okpalobi met Donna Campbell, who introduced her to the Marian Servants. 

“As a Marian servant I built up a loving, faithful relationship with the members,” said Okpalobi. “Through sharing of our life experiences I became very aware of how to discern what is God’s calling.”

Like Okpalobi, Lisette Borné, assistant director for the Marian Servants of the Eucharist, grew up with much formation and a devotion to Mary. 

“From earliest childhood with my own mother and the Sisters of Mercy, then later with the Sisters of Mt. Carmel, in my years with the Come, Lord Jesus! program, then with the Marian Servants, I have always been asked to ‘be like Mary’ but I would shake my head – how is that possible? She was without sin and I’m definitely not.  That was always a stumbling block to making her my model.” 

Borné’s Marian Servants’ formation revealed to her she was using Mary’s sinless state as an excuse to think it was impossible for her to be like Mary.  

“The teaching was yes, she never had original sin, but a few days after my birth, I no longer had original sin either because of my baptism,” Borné said.

Another excuse Borné had was that Mary was special because she was the mother of Jesus.

“As special as I think my four children are, they are not Jesus.  The teaching continued that no sooner had Mary agreed to be the mother of Jesus, she began to be humiliated, perplexed and suffer – a model for in our humiliations, our sufferings,” said Borné.

She added, “I am coming to understand that Mary’s way is a way I can model as I see it modeled in so many of my Marian Servant sisters and brothers, a way of tremendous faith in the love and care of the father for me, for all of us,” Borné said.

It was after seemingly fruitless prayer before the cloak of Juan Diego at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico that Mary Tauzin, current director of the Marian Servants of the Eucharist, “gave up trying” to ask Mary to be her mother and had a profound experience with Mary. From that point on, through Tauzin’s annual consecration to the Blessed Mother that is a part of the Marian Servant rule of life, her relationship with Mary has flourished.  

“It was through the sharing of my brother and sisters regarding the consecration to the Blessed Mother that my understanding came about and my heart changed. I was able to state my concerns. I was able to hear others’ concerns.  I was able to keep bringing my heart to my God and he gradually filled my heart with the graces I needed to really understand the mystery; the mystery of Mary’s essential role in salvation history and in my personal salvation,” said Tauzin.

Elaine Matherne’s journey to the Marian Servants evolved after moving to Denham Springs in 1998.

“At that point in my life, a desire to pray the rosary became stronger. As a cradle Catholic, this form of prayer wasn’t a part of my life. In fact, I didn’t even know the mysteries of the rosary,” said Matherne. “Just taking that first step of prayer, my heart became more open and the Blessed Mother’s graces took over.” 

The persistence of “a mother who never gives up” led Matherne to the Marian Servants. 

“The joy that I have and continue to experience is being in a community of like minds. The gentle and peaceful way I was led and the joy and holiness that I saw in each member was so amazing to me,” said Matherne. 

 Mary Ann Henchy came in contact with the Marian Servants when she was studying to become a spiritual direction at the Cenacle of Our Lady of Divine Providence School of Spiritual Direction in Clearwater, Florida. She joined the Marian Servants of the Eucharist until the Holy Spirit called her to establish a community in Hammond, The Marian Servants of the Visitation.

Henchy’s Marian Servants’ formation taught her the importance of “being” rather than “being busy.”

“(Being Marian Servants) is not something we do, it’s who we are,” Henchy said.

Her husband, Frank, joined Henchy after she founded the Hammond community.

“We pray together, we pray for our children and for our grandchildren,” said Henchy.

Likewise, it was through his wife, Lisa Landry, deceased, that Glen Landry 

joined the Marian Servants of the Eucharist. Lisa Landry was director of the Marian Servants before she died of cancer in 2020.

Glen Landry saw changes in his wife after she finished the school of spiritual direction in Clearwater, which motivated him to join the Marian Servants. The community influences his faith life.

“As an engineer – two plus two equals four – I was trying to make things come out as I had planned,” said Landry.

The Marian Servants helped Landry form an Ignatian viewpoint that “whatever God’s will is my will.”

This helps him to accept the situations more readily, which especially helped when Lisa’s passing became inevitable. But Mary showed she is with and prays for us “at the hour of our death.”

“Mary’s presence was very much felt, that mother figure providing comfort,” said Landry.

He also finds consolation knowing Mary experience loss in her life when Jesus died upon the cross.

As a statement of an eternal bond between the Marian Servants, Lisa’s named was enrolled in the “Marian Servants of the Resurrection” which is “a community that exists in heaven with our Lord.”

For more information the Baton Rouge and Hammond Marian Servants communities, visit marianservantsbr.org and divineprovidence.org.