87-year-old priest witnesses son’s diaconate ordination

On November 15, 2023, Adriano Müller, 63, was ordained a permanent deacon during a Mass held at the diocesan cathedral of Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sur (Brazil).

For more than 16 years, Adriano has served as an extraordinary minister of the Holy Eucharist at the parish of Our Lady of Graces, also in Novo Hamburgo. But that’s not the only interesting part of this story: the new deacon is the son of a priest!

Adriano is the son of Fr. Paulo Müller, who is 87 years old and became a priest years after his wife died in 1988. The couple had four children, and his wife’s death had a powerful impact on the family. “Our first question was: ‘What will we do, Lord? What will we do without our mother?’ Dad was very sad,” Adriano told ACI Digital. “One day, he came and said: ‘Son, I’m going to study to be a deacon.’ I said: ‘That’s good, Dad, it will fill your heart even more with Jesus,’” recalled the deacon.

Years later, Paulo gave his children another piece of news: he was going to become a priest in the Catholic Church. “For me, it was the greatest thing, to have a father who is a priest; that’s unusual,” Adriano said proudly.

Now it was his son’s turn to follow in his father’s footsteps and make his heart overflow with joy and pride. “I’m very happy about this event, about my son following the path of the Lord. May he remain firm in his purpose and achieve what his heart is directing in the name of the Lord,” said Fr. Paulo.

Regular readers of Aleteia may remember Fr. Paulo Müller from an earlier article which covered his celebration of his grandson’s wedding.

Love for Christ was greater than any of the family’s difficulties and was passed down from father to son. “It can only come from the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing that can justify this love that we have, the same love that my father has for Christ, that my family has… My wife is very religious. And we walk together in the search for our holiness, ever closer to the Lord,” Adriano said in a video published by the diocese of Novo Hamburgo.

Adriano’s ordination was scheduled for 2024, but was brought forward because of his father’s health problems. “My father was always the person I tried to follow,” says Adriano, who makes a point of repeating his diaconal motto: “I served the Lord, I listened to him, I learned from him and I followed him.”

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