Sister Marie Agnese Arsenault, CSJ
Sister Marie Agnese Arsenault, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet who served in Hawaii for 45 years as a teacher, catechist and college campus minister, died at Carondelet Village in St. Paul, Minn., on March 21, a month shy of her 90th birthday and two days after the 70th anniversary of her vows.
She was a much-loved kindergarten teacher on Oahu where she worked for many years. She also ministered on Maui in parish and social ministries.
Sister Marie Agnese was born Edna Marie Arsenault into a French-speaking household in Rumford, Maine, on April 26, 1923, to Arthur and Agnes Arsenault. She had two brothers, Paul and Henry. She attended a French-language Catholic grade school and boarded for one year of high school in Coaticook, Quebec.
Her maternal aunt, Sister Devota Doucette, a Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet, planted the seed of a religious vocation in young Edna, who left Maine at age 16 to enter the novitiate in St. Paul on Aug. 14, 1940. There she learned English and completed her high school education at the College of St. Catherine. She received the habit on March 19, 1941, taking the name Sister Marie Agnese.
After professing vows on March 19, 1943, Sister Marie Agnese taught primary grades at Our Lady of Lourdes School and St. Patrick School in the Twin Cities and at St. Michael School in Grand Forks, N.D. She also taught religious education and summer vacation classes.
Sister Marie Agnese was assigned to Hawaii in 1953 serving for nine years as a kindergarten and grade school teacher. She returned to St. Paul in 1962 at the request of Sister Devota, who was in failing health, teaching at Guardian Angels School in Hastings for four years.
After Sister Devota’s death in 1966, Sister Marie Agnese returned to Hawaii to teach kindergarten from 1966 to 1986 at St. Joseph School in Waipahu and St. Theresa School in Honolulu. She also taught weekly parish religious education classes, earning the St. Pius X catechist medal.
Her teaching career switched to parish ministry when Sister Marie Agnese moved to Maui in 1986 to Christ the King Church in Kahului. There she directed the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, served in campus ministry at Maui Community College, and became involved in Engaged Encounter, the Catholic marriage preparation program.
On Maui she also volunteered at a senior care home and at the parish food pantry.
She returned to St. Paul on June 5, 2002, to Bethany Convent where she joined her fellow sisters in activities that included ceramics, basket weaving, card-making, rag rug weaving on a loom and watercolor and cooking classes.
Some years she was able to visit her mother in Seattle or her brother in Maine. She attended community trips to St. Louis and Los Angeles as well as an Engaged Encounter Convention in Texas.
Sister Marie Agnese had a great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. It was her delight to have the chapel as her charge wherever she was missioned. Artistic and creative, she decorated the chapels according to the seasons, often with few resources.
She loved her community and was an eager and hard worker. While at St. Theresa School, her kindergarten classes would number up to 50 children. She was always gentle and patient with her students, both young and old, while teaching them to love Jesus. The children loved her. The people of Maui showed their appreciation by giving her a trip to the Holy Land.
The last surviving member of her immediate family, she died as she had lived, quietly and peacefully. Her funeral was March 26 at Carondelet Village. She was buried in Resurrection Cemetery beside her beloved aunt Sister Devota.
