Our life as Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration is our unique response to God’s initiative on our behalf. His love empowers us to express in our lives that vision which first took form in the heart of Mother Marie Claire Bouillevaux who united the Franciscan form of Gospel living with special dedication to Eucharistic adoration in a spirit of thanksgiving.
Rooted in the Holy Spirit’s gift of our Charism, we embrace our call to be the Church’s praying heart—a treasury of grace and and apostolic fruitfulness and a prophetic witness to the primacy of God (cf. Vultum Dei Quaerere 5).
Our monastic life, hidden in the silence of the cloister, finds its meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Abiding in His Eucharistic Presence, it is through Him, with Him, and in Him that we offer a continual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God.
Our Vowed Life
Through the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, our lives are set apart for God alone. Through the Poor, Chaste, and Obedient One, we discover our Way to the Father (cf. The Testament of St. Clare).
Poverty: St. Clare recognized that “by humility, the virtue of faith, and the strong arms of poverty” we can take hold of “the incomparable treasure hidden in the field of the world and in the hearts of men.” Following in her footsteps, we have sold everything to buy that field and live a simple life of radical dependence on the Providence of God.
Chastity: By mirroring Our Lady’s undivided heart, we embrace celibacy as a pathway to greater freedom, wholeness, and love. Our consecration transforms our capacity to love into a self-gift to Christ and His Church. The vow of chastity transfigures our mode of loving, expanding our hearts to embrace the whole world with a boundless love and an eternal perspective.
Obedience: By uniting our loving obedience with that of Christ (cf. Phil 2:8), we participate in the Church’s saving mission. St. Francis described obedience as the ‘sister of charity.’ Living in joyful submission to the Father through our Superior and the Rule, we move from self-will into true freedom—laboring together in communion with God and our Sisters for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our Eucharistic Call
Eucharistic Adoration is the axis upon which our entire monastic vocation revolves. Here, He remains with us and we with Him (cf. John 15:4).
Founded by Mother Marie Claire Bouillevaux, our Order embodies the gratitude of the leper who returned to glorify God. Our reparative thanksgiving is not confined to our hours of Eucharistic Adoration; it expands to all we do as Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, transforming even our daily duties into a continuous act of praise.
This Eucharistic love overflows as well into our experience of communal life. United as a family with a common vision and mission, our fraternal life becomes a school of love wherein we learn to love one another as Christ has loved us.
Our Contemplative Call
In the quiet of our monastic enclosure, deep within the Sonoran desert, we live a simple life of adoration, prayer, labor, and fraternal communion. Our witness to the world, spoken in silence, is this: He is enough.
Recognizing that life is more than outward achievement and acclaim, we find in our hidden life the opportunity to encounter the extraordinary in the ordinary. Living the contemplative life frees us to seek His Face and “to live, move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) in Him.
In imitation of Our Lady, we strive to become a place of welcome for the Eternal Word, Whose love expands our hearts to embrace the needs of suffering humanity.
Ours is a life of solitude but not isolation—a separation for Christ that bears fruit for souls and finds its fulfillment in Him. With hands raised in prayer (cf. Exodus 17:11-13), our life makes intercession for the Church and the entire world.