
Sister Armande Thouin
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
On September 2, 2024, Sister Armande Thouin,
in religion Marie-Télesphore,
went home to God.
She was 93 years old, with 72 years of religious profession.
Born in Repentigny, Quebec, she was the twelfth of the thirteen children
of Télesphore Thouin and Couramence Lareault.
The family farm was not far from the church and specialized in growing onions for wholesale. The family also raised cows, chickens and a few sheep and they cultivated a garden to feed the family. From early childhood, Armande learned to do her part of the family chores. The family worked, played, and prayed together. There was Mass in the morning, the rosary, and evening prayer. Visits were never permitted until after the family’s evening prayer.
Armande attended the village school run by two laywomen. After grade six, she became a boarder at Epiphanie Boarding School with the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary for three years.
Armande’s religious vocation became clearer with time. She got to know several religious communities by visiting her aunts, but she chose the Holy Names Sisters and entered when she was nineteen. At her ceremony of acceptance into the novitiate, she received her father’s name: Marie-Télesphore. After first vows, she was sent to teach first grade and was so successful that she continued as a first-grade teacher for 27 years, mostly at Saint-Jean-de-Matha. She radiated the love of God through her humour, her devotion, and her attention to the needs of others.
A series of tragedies then followed. A fire at the school destroyed all of her teaching material. Then Sister Armande suffered a car accident that disfigured her. It took a year for her to recover before returning to teach for one more year. Then the Ministry of Education reorganized the schools in Quebec and the Sisters had to leave Saint-Jean-de-Matha.
Armande, always open to the will of God, received a phone call from her sister: a pastor in Laval needed a cook. This was a sign for her and her superiors agreed. So, for the next eighteen years, Armande became cook and housekeeper, mostly in the rectory of St-Gilles Parish. She loved her ministry and approached it with joy and enthusiasm. Following her time at St-Gilles, she served at Saint-Fabien, l’Assomption, Val-Morin, and Bourget. During the lockout of the employees at the Motherhouse, she served as hairdresser, receptionist, and secretary.
Throughout the years, Armande was attached successively to the SNJM communities of Charlemagne, Albani, and Saint-André Pavilion, before it became necessary to move into Saint-Charles Pavilion. There, she could even more easily “cultivate her great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and continue faithfully praying the Divine Office in the morning, after lunch, preferably in the chapel, and in the evening.” Her life of prayer led her, at the age of 93, into her last generous surrender of herself into the arms of the Lord and Mother Mary.