Fr. Claude Lemieux, C.Ss.R., a long-time Redemptorist missionary throughout western Canada, died on December 2, 2007, at St. Joseph’s Rectory, Grande Prairie, Alberta, a few days after returning from a 10-day pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Diagnosed with a form of carcinoma in 2002 and fully aware of his terminal illness, Fr. Lemieux was thrilled to return to the Holy Land, where he had previously studied and walked in the footsteps of the prophets and Jesus for six months in 1985-86.

A confrere from seminary days, Father Jim Mason, C.Ss.R., described Fr. Claude as a treasured confrere. “Throughout his 43 years of priesthood, he was the ever-optimistic, cheerful, joking Redemptorist, both in the pulpit and in the community. He carried on with all the vim and verve that life blessed him with. He was gifted with the wonderful grace to make people feel their goodness, and treasure and enjoy their lives as a gift from God. Like a magnet he drew people to himself with his simplicity, his caring and ever-present humor.”

Fr. Claude’s family lived in Paradise Hill, Saskatchewan, where he was born on July 17, 1935, on a farm near Alingly. They later moved into Prince Albert where he grew up. Before entering the Redemptorists in August, 1956, he was employed by the federal Department of Agriculture as a patrolman in native communities in northern Saskatchewan.

Fr. Claude was ordained by Bishop G. Emmett Carter of the London Diocese in June 1964 after theology studies at Holy Redeemer College in Windsor, Ontario. In his first appointment at Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Vancouver (1965-1969), along with his parish responsibilities he developed a unique ministry to the hearing impaired. He attended special courses in orientation to the deaf in Monmouth, Oregon, and San Raphael, California.

In 1969, he was appointed to Holy Redeemer College in Edmonton as a teacher of religious education, counselor and prefect of students.

As pastor at Our Lady of the Foothills (1970-1974) in Hinton, Alberta, and its out mission at Grande Cache, he drove a local school bus for two years in order to get to know his younger parishioners.

After studies at the University of St. Michael’s College (1974-1975), he was a founding member of the western Redemptorist Mission Team, which was a serious, new effort to address the needs of the church in the West after Vatican II. By developing several types of missions, these Teams gave about 25 missions a year in parishes large and small across the western provinces and northwestern Ontario for the next 20 years.

For his sabbatical year of 1985-1986, he studied at the University of Notre Dame and spent six months in Israel and Egypt with a centre in Jerusalem. Fr. Mason recalled that Fr. Lemieux practiced his Hebrew while on the bus ride to the university, translating the commercial signs along the route for him.

In 1999, Fr. Lemieux retired from the Mission Team and was appointed to St. Joseph’s parish, Grande Prairie, Alberta. Along with regular parish duties, Fr. Claude roamed the Peace River country and beyond as chaplain to many Cursillos and Marriage and Engaged Encounters. He had a special feel for the poor and disadvantaged and understood his vow of poverty in a real way. For him, four wheels and a stick shift was as far as he would go in buying a car for needed transportation.

A vigil service was held on December 5 and Mass on December 6, 2007, in Grande Prairie, Alberta. A Memorial Mass of Christian Burial was held December 8, 2007, at St. Albert Church, St. Albert, Alberta. Fr. Claude Lemieux’s ashes will be interred in the Redemptorist plot in Edmonton.

(Source: Archives of the Edmonton-Toronto Redemptorists)