Divine Will Retreat

Mother Gabrielle began her religious life as a Poor Clare of Perpetual Adoration in the United States. For thirty-three years, she worked under the guidance of the late Abbess Mother Angelica, foundress of EWTN. She served as Novice Mistress for sixteen years and as Vicar for nine years.

During that time, she fell in love with the Divine Will writings of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta after reading one of the volumes given to her by a postulant in the novitiate.

In 2009, Mother Gabrielle received a sabbatical and made a retreat at a Benedictine monastery with her friend and spiritual director, Fr. Jacques Daley, OSB. While on retreat, they felt God place a call on their hearts to found a new monastic community in Italy dedicated to Eucharistic Adoration and Luisa Piccarreta’s writings from the Book of Heaven on how to live in God’s Most Holy and Divine Will.

In 2011, this became a reality when Msgr. Luigi Negri accepted the Benedictine Daughters of Divine Will in the Diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro. The Benedictine Monks followed a few years later under Bishop Andrea Turazzi. In 2016, the family was completed when their bishop gave permission to found the Third Order of Benedictine Oblates of Divine Will.

In October of 2023, Mother Gabrielle moved to Maryville, TN with four other sisters to open another house of the Benedictine Daughters of Divine Will in the United States. They have broken ground to build a monastery in Maryville that will be able to house seventeen sisters.