All Saints’, Dorval
Kathleen Dandurand
October 23, 2025
Kathleen Dandurand was a very humble person. When I first arrived here at All Saints’ by the Lake in 2018, I visited her at her home and we had some nice conversations; then, of course, came the COVID pandemic, and by the time we emerged from that, she was no longer really herself. So it was only from Carole, in the process of planning this service, that I learned what a remarkable person she really was.
Born in 1926 – today is, of course, her 99th birthday – Kathleen might have been expected to be part of that vast postwar generation of women who devoted themselves entirely to home and family. And she was, in fact, a loving wife to Jean for almost sixty years, a wonderful mother to Ronald and Carole, and an aunt who took in a young niece who needed a place to go. Kindness and caring defined Kathleen’s life.
But she was also so much more. Her kindness and caring were expressed well beyond the bounds of her family, and her love for God was far more than a pleasant emotion: it was an animating force that inspired her throughout her life.
Kathleen pursued not one but two careers directly focused on helping others: teaching school, and nursing. She brought people healing and hope at both ends of the life cycle (as a certified birth doula, as well as a priest who comforts the dying, I can relate!). Born on the farm in Shediac, she was a lover of nature and the outdoors – which brought her not only lifelong enjoyment, but the love of her life, when she met Jean on the ski hill!
Here at St. Mark’s, later All Saints’, Kathleen once again did all the things a woman of her generation would have been expected to – Altar Guild, Sunday School, baking for the bazaar – but she also approached her faith with a strong intellectual drive and sense of curiosity and wonder. She participated in book clubs, in the “Meditatio” meditation group held in this very chapel, and in the four-year faith formation program known as Education for Ministry, an intensive introduction to scripture, theology, history, and ethics that is the equivalent of several semesters at a seminary. When Kathleen decided to do something, she did it thoroughly!
And her faith, and the kindness and caring that it called her to, were lived out in service to the community as well. Helping people – from delivering meals to listening to people in crisis – was in her blood.
Throughout her long and well-lived life, Kathleen was upheld by the love, support, and prayers of her faith community, and she offered her own love, support, and prayers to others.
And none of that connection, none of that communion, ends with death. As Jesus says in our gospel reading in this service: “This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.” That is the most fundamental element of what we believe as Christians, that Jesus died and rose again so that we might all have eternal life, in the presence of the God we love and worship, beyond all pain and fear. This is the faith into which Kathleen was baptized as an infant; it inspired her curiosity and devotion, and invited her always more deeply into the mystery of God.
Today, we remember her baptism, and we share once again the meal of bread and wine that nourished Kathleen throughout her life and offered a foretaste of the heavenly table at which she now feasts forever. This is the meal of which Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Sharing at the table, we are united with the whole communion of saints, both the living and the dead, who are bound together in baptism and who will never be separated.
Kathleen now sees face to face the God whom she loved, served, and always hungered to know more about. That thirst for knowledge has been satisfied. She is at rest in the loving arms of the One who inspired in her the love that she shared so abundantly with the world. Nothing of what she was, nothing of all the good deeds she did, nothing that God gave her, has been lost – it has all been raised up and rejoices before God.
Of course none of this means that we are not right to grieve her! She showed us God’s love, and the loss of that example gives us pain. But while we mourn, we can rejoice at having had her to love in the first place, and resolve to follow her example, in love and kindness.
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