In the early afternoon of March 11, 2019, Cécile Granger breathed her last, at Actionmarguerite-Taché Personal Care Home in Winnipeg.  She was 98 years of age.

Cécile took her first breath in Letellier Manitoba, the third of eleven children born to Zotique Granger (originally from Drummondville, PQ) and Juliette Barnabé (originally from Letellier).  She was nurtured by a loving Franco-Manitobain family that sought to instill the essence of religious faith, hard work, and creative possibility.   Cécile said she learned to pray hearing her parents, and especially her grandmother at prayer. Watching her parents at work, she learned to work well. Family life, she said, encouraged her “to create and to invent.” She wrote of her upbringing, that whether it was

“cooking, gardening, flower-growing, sewing clothes … went hand in hand.”

In 1942, Cécile left that tight-knit French community to enter the novitiate of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions (RNDM) in the largely English world of Regina, SK.  She made her perpetual vows in 1951.

Over the course of her long religious life, Cécile taught for twenty-five years in the Junior and Secondary classrooms of public schools in St. Eustache, Ste Rose du Lac, Letellier, St. Joseph, Elie and St. Boniface in MB, as well as in Longueuil, QC.  During this time, she also served as local superior in the convents in which she lived. Her capacity to achieve and engender life impelled Cecile throughout her years of ministry as a teacher, and principal. She inspired her students, taught with enthusiasm, and “ran a tight ship”.  She is remembered as a dedicated, skilled and enterprising educator, as well as a life-long learner.

Retiring from teaching school in 1972, Cécile took a much appreciated sabbatical at the Pastoral Institute in Lyons, France.  On her return to MB in 1973, she worked in adult education at St. Boniface Cathedral, as well as subsequently working for the Marriage Tribunal of the Archdiocese until 1992.

In 1989, Cécile moved to St. Edward’s convent, and became active in St. Edward’s parish, participating until 2007 in a group providing pastoral care for the sick of St. Edward’s.  In a journal entry, Cécile noted the great joy she felt in visiting the sick and the “shut -ins”.

At heart, Cécile was an educator in whatever venue she exercised her call to mission. From schools to parish pastoral council, from working with sex trade workers to visiting “shut ins”, from sacramental preparation to marriage tribunal ministry, Cecile shared her many gifts and talents with generosity and gusto.

As previously indicated, Cécile was a proud Franco-Manitobain, and a strong advocate for the French language and culture.  She had a rich sense of humour and loved having fun – which was particularly nourished and amplified in the company of other Francophones.  In addition, Cecile had a flair for the dramatic, and regaled family and community alike with stories of her experiences.

Love of family and culture were the seed bed, the rich soil, in which Cecile’s love of God and the Scriptures, grew.

“The sower went out to sow some seeds, and some fell on good soil – the soil that was handed down by my parents,”

she reflected in a journal entry.

“Let those who have ears, hear…the hearing of the heart,” she exclaimed, “because it is through human experience that we grow spiritually.”

In another entry she writes:

“God chooses me because I am me, and not someone else; and my conversion … is through this call” (to be herself).

As she aged, Cécile sought to deepen her prayer life, and in another journal entry she noted:

“I am grateful to the Sisters of St. Benedict and Sister Claire Himbeault RNDM, for learning about Centering Prayer.  I have made this practice mine, and it is for me a fruitful spiritual exercise.”

In 2007, Cécile moved to Despins Residence where she happily lived within a community of many religious and lay persons who were her peers, most of whom were French-speaking.  She appreciated having more time to read, to pray, to learn, as well as to visit with family and friends.

Spiritual teacher, Paula D’Arcy, writes:

“God comes to us disguised as our life”.

For 98 years, God manifested through the unique “disguise” that was the life and loving of Sr. Cécile Marie Louise Granger RNDM.  Cécile loved God, her family, her culture, her ministry, and the spiritual journey that wove all these loves as one. With gratitude we commend her to God’s care and keeping.