Sister Lillian Corriveau, SSND
April 21, 1940 – December 29, 2023
Lillian May Corriveau was born in New Haven, Connecticut, on April 21, 1940, to Joseph Corriveau and the former Lucille Foucault, devout Catholics originally from Canada. Lillian and her older brother Leo Joseph were both baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Wallingford, Connecticut. She was about four when the family made Meriden its permanent home, and Henry Franklin was born. Lillian described herself as a tomboy, with the scraped knees and bloody noses to prove it, and “very close to her brothers.” All three attended St. Laurent School in Meriden with the Assumption Sisters.
At St. Mary High School as a first-year student, Lillian was introduced to the School Sisters of Notre Dame; she then spent the next three years at our Aspiranture in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After graduation in 1958, she entered the Candidature at 6401 North Charles Street, Baltimore, and a year later, at Reception, received the religious name John Joseph.
After first vows in 1960, Sister John Joseph spent nine years teaching first grade at St. Brigid School, Westbury, New York, and third at St. Mary School, Bethel, Connecticut, before being missioned to Puerto Rico from 1969 to 1984. First as teacher of grades one and ESL at Colegio Catolico in Caguas, and then grade three in Aguas Buenas, Lily became pastoral minister and leader of Charismatic Prayer in Aguas Buenas, which had become the center of the burgeoning Movement. Deeply involved both personally and ministerially, Lily and Sister Carol Dwyer felt that they grew enormously in God’s love, by their involvement. They served as Leader of Music Ministry and Leader of Healing Ministry, respectively, as well as leaders of prayer.
In 1979, when the Region of Puerto Rico established its first House of Formation at Cupey Bajo, Lillian became Postulant, then Novice, and finally Directress of On-Going Formation. She brought all this experience with her when in 1984, she became one of the pioneer communities when the Region established a mission in Banica, in the Dominican Republic close to the Haitian border.
Three years later, she was living alone in the poor town of Pedro Santana, very close to the Haitian border, for one year to determine whether the Region should go there as a second mission. Here, she suddenly became involved in a life-saving mission: an American couple, who were caring for 28 infant Haitians in their informal “Baby Home,” fled across the border into the Dominican Republic because of their fear that hatred for Americans had become dangerous in that country. With both Dominican Republic and Haitian soldiers pursuing them, they encountered Lillian, the only English-speaking person living there. She protected them bringing them to her home and appealing to the U.S. government. Lillian risked her life to do this; later the story, and its happy ending in Indiana, appeared in the Readers Digest, told in detail by Henry Hurt.
Her year in Pedro Santana ended, Lilian returned to the States to serve one year as part time social worker at St. Peter’s Village, in Denville, New Jersey, the province’s home for children. Next came a new mission to Chile after time for discernment. Nuestra Senora de Andacollo, Santiago, in 1989, was the parish of her service as Pastoral Associate and Director of On-Going Formation. It was just 25 years since the first SSNDs had come to South America.
Deeply devoted to visiting the poor in their homes, Lily increased her knowledge of and sensitivity to their hopes and dreams for the future of Chile. Soon she was invited to be part of the National Institute for Rural Pastoral Ministry. She saw this call as dovetailing with her vocation/formation ministry.
In May, 1992, Lily and Sister Bernardine Gutacker became pioneers in Puluqui, a small island and new mission, off the southernmost tip of Chile. Living in the village of Chope, they were taught by the residents, how to survive the bitter winters, prepare the native food, and find their way, walking everywhere and climbing fences on an island without roads. In about two years, they discerned, sadly, that Puluqui was at that time not viable for several reasons, not physical, as much as the readiness of the people, and returned to the States.
Lily’s next call was first as a CPE student at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and then as Hospice Chaplain at Hackensack Medical Center from 1996 to 2006. Her many years in formation, spiritual direction and pastoral ministry served Lilly well as she went next to join SSNDs on a new continent, her third – Africa, in Ghana and Kenya. As community member and teacher, she joined the West African Novitiate in the Diocese of Kisumu, Ghana, from 2006 to 2013.
At all her varied missions, English and Spanish speaking, Lillian’s spirit of love and her joy made her much loved. Retreat director Mary Maher had once said to the community, “God and you are old friends.” Shawn Kavanagh and Regine Bruder, members of her “Krowd,” attested that this was so true of Lily. Shawn wrote, “One thing I know for sure---Lily is very happy in Heaven. She longed to be with Jesus.” Her best friend, Sister Carol Dwyer, wrote of her, “Her gifts of sensitivity, intuition, attunement to the nudging of the Holy Spirit, and her care and interest in the wellbeing of the other made her a powerful presence in her ministries.”
At the wake service preceding her funeral Mass on January 12, at St. Andrew Church, Bridgeport, Sister Connie Carrigan read Carol Dwyer’s tribute, and Lillian’s niece Denise spoke loving reminisces for the family. Presider John Mulreaney, SJ, recalled Lillian’s “apostolic availability.” Burial of her cremains followed immediately at St. Mary Cemetery, Bethel, Connecticut.
Sister Kay O’Connell
