Important Dates

May 21, 1926
Jaime Bonet Bonet is born in Alqueria Blanca (Mallorca-Spain) to Jaime and Maria.

1940 
At age 14, Jaime has an experience of the God which shapes his whole life.

1940 

Jaime enters the Diocesan Seminary of Mallorca

1942
Jaime is received at Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora de la Sapiencia

May 31, 1952
Jaime is ordained priest by Pope Pius XII in Barcelona. After his ordination. Bishop Juan Hervas appointed him parish priest at Mancor del Valle (a small village in Mallorca) and director of the Sanctuary of Saint Lucia, headquarters of the Cursillos Movement

1960
Bishop Jesús Enciso Viana assigned Jaime to the Diocesan Council of Catholic Action, with the particular task of encouraging its evangelical and apostolic spirit.

October 11, 1962
The Second Vatican Council opens under Pope John XXIII

January 17, 1963
The first group of consecrated women of the Verbum Dei was approved as a lay association with the name Misioneras diocesanas de la Palabra de Dios, under Bishop Enciso Viana. The motto of their dedication was already “orationi et ministerio verbi instantes erimus.” (Acts 6:4 – “We shall dedicate ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word”).

1965
The first female Verbum Dei Formation Course (novitiate) was situated in the Sanctuary of Santa Lucia in the village of Mancor del Valle, Mallorca.

1966
A group of Verbum Dei missionary sisters went to Rome to study in the Regina Mundi Pontifical Institute, which had been an institution recently established for the theological formation of religious women.  At that same time, another group of VDMF sisters left to found a Verbum Dei community in Piura, Peru.

1967
Another group of VDMF sisters moved to the vicinity of Madrid where the Comillas Pontifical University (Madrid), for the first time in Spain, had opened its doors to women for theological studies.  Likewise, the first Verbum Dei Consecrated Missionary Married Couple, together with a group from both the male and female Branches of the VDMF were established in Bilbao, forming “Schools of Evangelization” whilst pursuing their theological studies.

1969 
Bishop Alvarez Lara, approved Verbum Dei with its three branches: consecrated women, priests (at this moment they were diocesan priests who received the permission from the Bishop to be part of the new group) and married couples as the ‘Apostolic Institute Verbum Dei’, in the form of a Pious Union.”

1977 
As a fruit of the one month spiritual exercises, a new missionary strategic plan of expansion brought the Verbum Dei into all the continents of the world.

November 1978
Missionaries from the three branaches came to San Francisco from Spain.

January 25, 1993 
The Archbishop of Madrid, Cardinal D. Angelo Suquía, approved the branches of both the consecrated women and the consecrated men of Verbum Dei as two separate religious institutes;

May 29, 1993
The married couples’ branch of the community was approved as a ‘Public Association of the Faithful’.

May 30, 1993
The community was approved with the status of Federation of the Verbum Dei Ecclesial Fraternity.

April 15, 2000
The Holy See approved all the three branches with the structure of one sole institute, thereby safeguarding its unity.  Hence, Verbum Dei was pontifically approved with its three branches as one Fraternity of Consecrated Life. The innovative category of New Forms of Consecrated Life at the Institute for Consecrated Life at the Holy Sees was applied to the VDMF.

June 25, 2017
Rev. Jaime Bonet the founder of the Verbum Dei dies.

January 17, 2023
Verbum Dei celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding