Sister Jeannine Fillion RNDM, died peacefully at Action Marguerite-Valade Personal Care Home in Winnipeg on April 2, 2017.

Over the course of her religious life Jeannine served in many Canadian towns and cities in Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan as a teacher. She also worked at Villa Maria retreat house in Winnipeg, in a ministry of hospitality – welcoming people and helping them get settled. In addition, Jeannine worked as a volunteer with women’s shelters, with the sick, and with geriatric care at Tache nursing home.

Jeannine was a loyal and faithful member of the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions. She took on various responsibilities in the diverse communities of which she was a part, and served as local leader at our provincial house of St. Edward’s from 1989 – 1992.

Small of stature, Jeannine was a giant when her sense of justice and fairness was challenged. She was a caring teacher, and her kindness and respect towards the children in her care was remarkable, as was her sense of humour and her infectious laugh. She loved to sing, and formed children’s choirs as well as singing in choirs herself.

Jeannine had many endearing gifts and qualities. She was generous, well organized,and kind. Whatever was being planned for our shared RNDM agenda – be it a meeting, a common project, some needed labor – whatever – we could count on Jeannine being there. And in community, that is a very precious attribute!

Jeannine was committed to her personal growth and development – even when the journey was rocky and rough. She availed herself of a variety of workshops and programmes, and was faithful to her annual retreat. In all of this, Jeannine’s relationship with God was central to her life, and her great faith was evident, as was her joy in the commonplace miracles of daily life.

Jeannine’s last years were spent in accepting the multiple diminishments of Alzheimer’s disease. Her biological sister Florence (who died in 2014) was also an RNDM, also had Alzheimer’s, and Jeannine found accepting their common illness very difficult.

There are three things that they say Alzheimer’s disease cannot take from us: poetry, prayer and music. Jeannine practiced all three through most of her life. She loved music and could easily break into song with little prompting. She liked to write poetry especially about her relationship with God. While not a poem per se, Jeannine wrote the following revelatory passage about how she imaged her relationship with God:

I like to see myself as a “little flower” fragile and inconspicuous yet beautiful before the Father who created me in his own image. The picture I have is of a little blue flower (myosotis in French; forget-me-not in English). No one pays much attention to it as it as it is small and hidden. Also as I like to think of God as my Rock and my Salvation, and I like the picture of a running stream (which for me symbolizes the Holy Spirit, the living water), I now like to picture myself as growing in the crevice of a an elevated rock in the middle of a stream, and on each side of this rock flow two little falls … The flower is fragile and weak but its roots grow deep down where it gets its nourishment. It is at times shaken by strong winds and even submerged at times but always the Lord rescues it because “he is my rock, my refuge, my stronghold.” Funeral services were held in the Santa Maria Chapel on July 16 with Msgr. Kenneth Miller (brother of our Sister Joan) presiding and many Sisters and friends in attendance. Among those friends were many members of the Vietnamese community of Regina, including the president of the Regina Vietnamese Association.

Throughout Jeannine’s writings she demonstrated a profound gratitude for the many healing experiences of her life. Her images of her relationship with God were simple and earthy. She knew God well and she knew herself well: light and shadow- she wrote of both.

Jeannine’s practice of prayer continued to the end. This past January at the end of a communal celebration of the Sacrament of the Sick in which it seemed that Jeannine was not able to knowingly participate in the prayer, she surprised us yet again. At the conclusion, as the priest gave the blessing, Jeannine raised her arm and very purposely made the sign of the cross.

Near the end of her capacity for writing, about 8 years ago, Jeannine wrote often about the importance of letting go: letting go of the past, letting go of compulsions, letting go of fear. Jeannine had come to believe that every letting go in life was a practice for the big letting go that is death. Perhaps this is why when death came for Jeannine, she made such a gentle crossing. She had been practicing “letting go” for a very long time.

May she rest in peace and in delight.