Sister Simone Morel

“Father, I want those you have given me, to be with me where I am.”   Jn. 17:24

August 8, 2010, Sister Simone Morel
in religion M. Cécile-Agnès
went home to God.

She was 99 years old and had been professed for 78 years.

Born in Montreal, Quebec, she was the eldest of 9 children.
Her parents were Joseph Morel and Amanda Labelle.

Simone was a happy child who developed a taste for doing everything well and responsibly as she did her household chores.  She attended St. Clément School and Ste. Émélie Boarding School where she learned to play the piano.  As she as growing up, she had the desire to become both a religious and a teacher.  Her frequent visits to Church fostered and affirmed her vocation.  At the age of 19, she entered our Congregation.

For 33 years, Sister Simone, a very serene person, taught with distinction, in our various boarding schools: Marie-Rose, Outremont, Hochelaga, Maplewood, Mont-Royal, Sainte-Émélie, Saint Lambert and Longueuil.  In Valleyfield, she was a teacher and later became the principal.  She taught the Grade 10 and 11 Classical courses. She had completed her Teachers’ College and B.A. degree in Montreal and received a post-graduate degree from the University of Laval in Quebec.

“I loved teaching and throughout the years I was enriched by those I lived with and worked with as well by the diverse personalities of my wonderful students.  During two summers, I enjoyed teaching at Collège Durocher and overseeing the dissertations of the Sisters who were completing their superior diplomas at the Teachers’ College.”

At the age of 60, after having been the superior for two years at the convent in Ormstown, Sister Simone returned to Montreal to become the registrar at the Vincent d’Indy School of Music, a post she held for 20 years.

When she was 80 years old, she became the switchboard operator at the Motherhouse, a job she held for almost 15 years.  We know that she was very discrete, congenial and likeable.  She also continued to have a strong singing voice.

Sister Simone moved to the St. André Pavilion at Maison Jésus-Marie in Longueuil when she was 93 years old. There, she gave of herself in kindness and compassion to the ministry of prayer and of visiting the sick.

“Approach all things with the attitude of the Holy One,” she once wrote. Sister Simone loved to repeat over and over again, “Oh my Jesus, you, the Son of the Living God, pierce my heart with the Love that unites you to the Father and be a continuous prayer within me.”

She is now in the presence of her Living God!