Sister Cecilia LeBlanc, MM

Born: April 9, 1924
Entered: September 7, 1943
Died: April 17, 2025

A mere eight days after turning 101, on April 17, 2025, Sister Cecilia LeBlanc surprised us all by slipping away ever so quietly into the fullness of God’s love. No one expected to hear this announcement on Holy Thursday. But somehow, Ceci, as she was familiarly known in the Africa Region, sensed that “her beloved was near,” the Psalm she chose to be sung today. She had been a Maryknoll Sister for 82 years. Desiring to be as useful in death as she had been in life, Ceci donated her body to science.

Cecilia Mabel LeBlanc was born on April 9, 1924, in Boston, MA, to Alfred and Catherine MacEachern LeBlanc. She had a sister, Caroline and a brother, Joseph, both of whom have pre-deceased her; she is survived by four nieces, Carol, Cecilia, Mary, and Carolyn.

Cecilia graduated from St. Patrick’s High School in Roxbury, MA in 1943. During those formative years, she read the Maryknoll Magazine avidly and was captivated by the tales of visiting missionaries. So it was not so unusual that upon graduating from high school, more than anything she wanted to be a Maryknoll Sister in order “to bring the faith to other lands,” as she wrote in her application.

That fall, on September 7, 1943, Cecilia entered the Maryknoll Sisters Congregation at Maryknoll, NY. At the Reception ceremony six months later, she received the religious name Catherine Cecilia. She made her First Profession of Vows on March 7, 1946, at Maryknoll, NY and her Final Vows on the same day in 1949 in Monrovia, CA.

Ceci had entered to bring the faith to other lands yet her first assignment after profession was to the seminary kitchen for one year, followed by another year in another seminary kitchen in Mountain View at Los Altos, CA. How did she feel about these assignments? In her 132-page Memoir entitled, “A Journey Remembered,” her thoughts come across with wide-eyed wonder:

“Following our First Profession, most of the sisters who entered with me were assigned to fields afar, others to studies. I was assigned in 1947 to the Maryknoll seminary at Mountain View, California, where Bishop James Edward Walsh was in residence. At least once a month, he gave our community a conference, sharing his own unique spirituality probing what it meant to be a Maryknoll missioner. He entered at the time Bishop James A. Walsh and Father Thomas Frederick Price were beginning to lay the foundations of Maryknoll.” Although Cecilia surely yearned for overseas mission, she thrived in the assignments she was given.

Her next assignment in 1948 was to our TB hospital in Monrovia, California, where she would help to prepare meals for very sick people for the next nine years. It just so happened that Mother Mary Joseph, our foundress, was there in residence during some of those years. Mother Mary Joseph directed the choir and Cecilia played the organ. Mother also encouraged the sisters to drop by her room anytime. Ceci noted in her Memoir that she happily took her up on that at the end of a work day, just to talk, adding wryly, “However, my association with Mother didn’t hasten my overseas mission assignment.”

In 1957 Ceci was due for Renewal, which in those days was taken every ten years. She jokingly told Sister Eileen Kelley that since she was going back to Maryknoll, she felt it in her bones that she would not be returning to Monrovia because this would be the year she would be assigned to Africa, to which Eileen retorted: “No way! Africa is not big enough for both of us!” Cecilia and Eileen were happy to learn that Africa, specifically Tanzania, would not only be big enough for the two of them, but for three others besides:  Sisters Joan Campbell, Marion Puszcz, and Catherine Erisman!

Cecilia’s first mission in 1957 was to Kowak where her primary assignment was to study the Luo language. Soon, she would be engaged in pastoral ministry and she lost no time in visiting the villages to meet the people to introduce herself and to practice the new words she was learning. The children especially were not shy about laughing at her mistakes. Ceci laughed at herself along with them and endeared herself to the villagers who welcomed her everywhere.

Much could be written about Ceci’s time in Tanzania, an experience that left a major impact on her life as assuredly as it did on the people she had met and served. In her detailed Memoir covering her entire ten years in Tanzania, an undated entry speaks volumes. “As I came to know the Luo people, I began to hear my name, Sesilia, Sesilia, ‘Nyar Jaluo,’ the daughter of the Luos.”

In 1966, when she returned to the States for Renewal, she was assigned to study first, obtaining her Bachelor of Science in Education from Mary Rogers College at Maryknoll, NY in 1969, then earning Master of Arts in English Literature from State University College at New Paltz, NY, in 1971.

Equipped with these degrees, Cecilia’s next assignment in 1971 was to the all-boys Isoka Secondary School in Zambia. She taught third year high school and was also responsible for the overall academic scheduling. She loved the ministry, but Cecilia’s time at Isoka would be short-lived as she needed to return to the United States in 1973 for medical reasons.

Two years later, in 1975, when she applied to transfer to the Eastern United States Region, she wrote that she had originally intended to return to Africa, but for family and personal reasons, she decided instead that it would be better for her to remain in the States. And she added: “Now, I see as much a need for Maryknollers working in the States as in other countries.”

For the next thirty-eight years of her active life, from 1975 until she came to the Chi Rho Community at Maryknoll in 2013, Cecilia gave her all to make God’s love visible in New Hampshire, in Connecticut, and in the myriad ways in which she participated in the Eastern U.S. Region, as well as in the wider congregation. She taught in several schools and received high praise for her poise, her sense of humor, empathy, enthusiasm, and dedication. In 1987, she branched out, tutoring inmates for their GED at the Belknap County Jail and teaching English as a Second Language to Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants.

Throughout her teaching years, Ceci continued to challenge herself, taking workshops or seminars in Developmental Disabilities and Working with Parents of Children with Disabilities. From 1988-2004, when she served for some years as the Receptionist/Secretary for the New Hampshire Catholic Charities, a course in computer skills became a necessity. In the early 1990s, to prepare well for her volunteer ministry with older people and for her time in Family Ministry in 1994, she took courses on Current Issues in Aging and Gerontology.

Having begun her mission life in pastoral ministry in Tanzania, Cecilia would bring her active mission life full circle in the EUS Region by serving on Pastoral Councils, as a Eucharistic Minister at Assisted Living and Retirement Homes, reaching out to the Homebound, being active in RCIA, Bible Study Groups and in Bereavement Ministry.

In 2013, Cecilia had been thinking about coming home to Maryknoll, NY while she could still purposefully contribute to her retirement community. The EUS Region sent Cecilia with their blessing, endorsing her as a gentle, creative, and thoughtful member who would be greatly missed and who would be a great blessing to the Chi Rho Community. Here at Maryknoll, she would continue to share her many talents, serving as a member of the Home Care Chapel Liturgical Music Team until 2019.

Cecilia requested that her personal note of gratitude be printed in this letter of appreciation. “I thank God for all the blessings in my life: my parents’ unconditional love, my brother, sister and their families who have remained close – and the joy of being one with my sisters in our loving Maryknoll community.”  As we say our  farewell, we thank Cecilia for the beauty of her life with us in Maryknoll.  We welcome our Maryknoll brother, Fr. David La Buda who is presiding at this liturgy of resurrection.