From Miss Mexico to Nun

Esmeralda as Miss Mexico and as a nun with 2 other sisters.

Esmeralda Solís Gonzáles is a young Mexican woman who was crowned 4 years ago as a beauty queen in her hometown — and now she’s joined the Poor Clares Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament. Born in Valle de Guadalupe, Jalisco State, to a Catholic family, she joined the convent of the Poor Clare Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament of Cuernavaca in Morelos State, after leaving her career as a nutritionist. Esmeralda says “You really don’t know what religious life is until you’re within it. I was very happy with everything I had, but it does not compare with the happiness that God now places in my heart.” The young postulant met the Poor Clare Missionaries five years ago, at the age of 14, when her concern for a religious vocation “was awakening” through “vocational days, missions and camps.” In order to discover her vocation, she spent a lot of time in prayer and charity, “knowing from the outside or from the world” what this change would involve. The Poor Clares Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament are a Religious Institute founded by Blessed María Inés Teresa Arias in 1945 in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The spirit of the order is Eucharistic, Marian, priestly and missionary and is centered on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. The missionaries work in clinics, youth groups, preschools and schools, university dorms, centers for the spiritual exercises and missions, among others. They are present in Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina, the United States, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Russia, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Vietnam and India. Esmeralda was Miss Mexico in 2016, but now she is completely given to God and her vocation as a dedicated and happy nun.