Marymount Hermitage was founded in 1984 for a new contemplative community of Catholic women hermits. The purpose of our life is union with God through prayer in solitude, silence, and seclusion. The Hermit Sisters of Mary make perpetual profession of public vows as hermits according to The Rule of St. Benedict and our Constitution which adapts this Rule to our way of life in eremitical community.

We believe that the contemplative life, a gift of the Holy Spirit, serves the Church in a hidden, though fruitful manner.

The vocation to be a hermit is a call from God and is not to be taken on one's own initiative. It is a particular response to the general call given to all Christians to live a life of holiness: the very inner life of God who is Love.

The Hermitage property, 100 acres of rolling, high desert, range land was donated by the Ball family of Mesa, Idaho in memory of their parents, Bryan and Emma Ball. They and all our generous benefactors are remembered daily at Mass and in the prayers and sacrifices of the community.

Marymount was named by the Most Rev. Sylvester W. Treinen, who invited us to the Diocese of Boise. The name describes the community and the place: dedicated to Mary, Mother of the Church, and surrounded by mountains. We are committed in a special way to praying for the needs of the Church and the world and trust that in union with Jesus Christ our Redeemer, our repentance, reparation, and adoration will bring us and all our brothers and sisters to the joys of eternal life.

Marymount Hermitage was solemnly dedicated by Bishop Treinen at Mass on November 19, 1984. In the beginning the complex included a chapel/library, common house, and three hermitages. In July, 1987, to celebrate the Marian Year, a bell tower was added to the chapel and the Angelus is rung daily at morning, noon, and night. By August, 1988, two additional hermitages had been built to accommodate women discerning a vocation to our way of life and for retreatants and guests. There is a workshop and garden near the chaplain's hermitage.

In April, 1995, our new chapel, “Our Father's House,” was solemnly blessed by the Most Rev. Tod D. Brown, Bishop of Boise. The old chapel building was moved and renovated to become part of the common house for an expanded library and office.

On October 30, 2002, Bishop Michael P. Driscoll, Bishop of Boise, offered Mass for us and afterwards blessed our new house. Holy Family House is now the dwelling for Sister Rebecca Mary and Sister Mary Beverly.

This house serves two functions in the life of the community. First of all, the Sisters can live closer to chapel so that in ill health and old age, the long walks from the hermitages will not be a burden. The Sisters are able to assist each other and thus be able to spend more time in prayer. The house is designed to foster the silence and solitude that we lived so rigorously in the individual hermitages since the foundation of Marymount Hermitage.

Secondly, Holy Family House will serve as a formation house. Here, candidates to the community will live and be introduced to the life and charism of the Hermit Sisters of Mary. Novices will receive instructions both in formal classes and the informal education of living as consecrated women with a definite way of life.

The house is not only a practical expression of the communal aspect of our way of life, but it is also a symbol that we are a community and not just a collection of individual hermits. From the formation house, a younger member can gradually learn to live more and more full-time in her hermitage and hopefully make a successful transition to the spiritual and emotional intensity of a life of prayer in solitude.