The Rev. Deacon M-K Blanchard, Ph.D. (1948-2015)
 

The Diocese of Georgia mourns the sudden loss of the Rev. Deacon Mary-Kathleen Blanchard, who died on March 19. She was a comfort to many dealing with grief and we pray that God comforts all of us grieving the loss of our sister in Christ.

Bishop Benhase said, "Mary-Kathleen epitomized the heart of the diaconate. She was passionate in her concern for those hurting and marginalized in our culture. She was not only passionately concerned. She also actively engaged in service to them. We will sorely miss her witness, but we rest assured that she now lives in that place where there is no grief but life eternal."

Mary-Kathleen was born in Michigan in 1948. She had Cerebral Palsy, and among her earliest memories was learning to walk with her parents patiently providing physical therapy on her father's desk top. Baptized as an infant in the Presbyterian Church, she remembered her home being filled with sacred music as a child.

Blanchard graduated Magna Cum Laude from Western Michigan University in 1970 with a BA in French. Her graduate work in French included study at the University of Paris and Middlebury College in Vermont. She moved to Augusta in 1971 to teach at Augusta State. She joined the choir at Good Shepherd and was confirmed there by Bishop Paul Reeves in 1977. She married her husband, Paul, in 1979 gaining a family with his children-Paul, Carolyn, and Denny. She received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill the same year.

Paul died in 1992 following emergency bypass surgery. M-K would later write of her initial anger at his death being met by "a great sense of peace, contentment, and faith" in his requiem mass. In the midst of loss, God gave her peace beyond understanding. When she returned to church, it was to St. Paul's in 1993.

A professor of French Language and Literature, she became a full professor in 2000 at what is now Georgia Regents University. That year when Bishop Henry Louttit made his visitation to St. Paul's, she reaffirmed her faith. She wrote that her childhood view of "God is way up there in heaven" had changed to "God is in me, beside me, all around me." The following year she began serving as a Hospice volunteer and an Education for Ministry (EfM) Mentor. She also worked with the church's Manna Truck and headed up their Pastoral Care Team.

Responding to her call to servant ministry, Blanchard entered discernment in the Diocese of Georgia and became a Postulant in 2002. She was ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons by Bishop Louttit at St. Paul's on August 19, 2004. As a deacon, Blanchard enjoyed serving together with her shih tzu, Hope, a trained pet therapy dog. Starting in 2007, she made numerous trips to Our Little Roses in Honduras, a residential home and model ministry for abandoned and abused girls. Speaking of the ministry there, she said, "I feel as though I step into the kingdom of God when I go there."

Deacon Blanchard's own experiences of God's presence in the midst of loss fueled her passion for a ministry to others in need both here and in Central America. A memorial service will be held at her beloved Saint Paul's, Augusta, Thursday March 26 at 4:00 p.m.