Perpetual Adoration at Mount Alverno: Easter 1943 to the Present

Perpetual Exposition granted 1943; the adoration begun Easter Sunday Eve 1943 and continued without interruption to November 2026

The grant: The sisters had kept adoration in hourly rotation since the Lafayette beginnings — a watch kept by turns, day and night. What changed at Mishawaka was the form: in 1943, through the Franciscan Father Columban Kramer, O.F.M., the house received the grant of Perpetual Exposition — the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar continuously, not reserved only — with Bishop Noll's grant behind it. The exposition began on Easter Sunday Eve of 1943, with a procession and the singing of "Christus Vincit," on the jubilee book's telling, and the book's claim is the congregation's claim to this day: the adoration begun that night has continued from that day forward.

The continuance: The chain from 1943 to the present is documented at both ends and at points between. The jubilee book of 1950 records the practice standing seven years in. The congregation's present published life records it standing still: the motherhouse at 1515 West Dragoon Trail keeps its adoration chapel open to the public from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, and scheduled pilgrimage groups are invited to join the sisters in adoration — the invitation printed in the diocesan newspaper's Holy Year of St. Francis coverage in April 2026, which names Sister Lucia Richardson, O.S.F., as the contact for pilgrimages, in her public role. The public hours are the visitor's portion of a watch that runs around the clock: the sisters' own rotation continues through the night hours when the chapel is closed to the street. About fifty sisters were in residence at the motherhouse at the diocesan newspaper's last count, in February 2023, and the congregation marked 150 years in the United States in 2025, counting from the Lafayette landing of December 1875. The adoration at Mount Alverno is therefore not a historical exhibit but a living practice, verified current in November 2026 on the congregation's and the diocese's own publications.

Sources:

1. Commemorating Seventy-five Years, the congregation's 1950 jubilee book (archive.org) — the 1943 grant, the Easter Eve procession, and the hourly rotation from Lafayette.
2. Today's Catholic, the diocesan newspaper: Holy Year of St. Francis coverage, 17 April 2026 (chapel hours, pilgrimage invitation); motherhouse report, 19 February 2023 (about fifty sisters in residence).
3. The congregation's site (ssfpa.org), live at 1515 W. Dragoon Trail, Mishawaka, in November 2026, including the 150-years-in-America observance of 2025.