Sister Lucille Ménard

“For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation.” Ps 62

September 23, 2013, Sister Lucille Ménard,
in religion Anita-de-Marie
went home to God.

She was 99 years old and had been professed for 79 years.
 
Born in Saint-Étienne de Beauharnois, Québec, she was the eldest of 7 children of Léonidas Ménard and Alma Saint-Denis.

The Menard parents were farmers. Family life, wrote Lucille, "was pious, happy, peaceful and joyful". As a child, she attended the village school and then the boarding school run by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in Beauharnois.

Her vocation grew with her. Lucille summed up her story in this way: “Devoted wholly to the Lord, without really knowing why, I wanted to quickly enter community like the Sisters who were my teachers”. She entered the novitiate when she was 18 and made her religious profession when she was 20 years old.

For 37 years, Sister Anita-de-Marie taught at the primary level in the schools of St-Hilaire, Saint-Anselme and Sainte-Eulalie in Montreal, at École normale Ste-Marie-des-Anges, at the secondary schools of Eulalie-Durocher, Saint-Mathieu and Polyvalente de Beloeil...

Competent, clear-sighted, and approachable, she quietly taught with success, tenacity, and serenity. She was also busy with the Eucharistic Crusade, with youth, and parish liturgies.

Sister Lucille left teaching to become the superior at the convent in Beauharnois, principal as well as assistant in the finance department at Pensionnat du Saint-Nom-de-Marie, and then bursar at the convents in Valleyfield and Ste-Martine. She spent a total of 24 years working in finances. The last 20 years of her active life were spent at Ste-Martine, where she carried out, besides accounting, various services to the community.

“Sister Lucille had a very special way of being present to others: she would listen attentively, with her mind and heart.”  “Her discretion, humility, and respect for people conveyed an image of a woman of prayer.”
When, at the age of 93, she went to the infirmary at Maison Jésus-Marie in Longueuil, Sister Lucille devoted herself to prayer ministry. With her capacities progressively diminishing, she welcomed her call to Eternal Life as a grace.

“Sister Lucille’s great faith in Christ was her source of strength and light. Her diligence and faithfulness to her duties never faltered.”