LEWISTON – Sister Cecile scanned the room, leading her third-grade students in a math drill.

“Five plus 7: What would that give us, Darby?”

“12.”

“Good girl.”

“Eight plus 7. Nathan?”

“Fifteen.”

“Good boy.”

The scene at Trinity Catholic School on Lisbon Street wasn’t different from other classrooms, except in one way.

Sister Cecile Mondor, 67, is the last teaching nun in the Twin Cities.

That’s a big change, considering the cities have one of the largest Catholic concentrations in Maine. Many of today’s parents and grandparents were taught by nuns in Catholic schools, most of which have closed.

Last year, Lewiston-Auburn schools had three teaching nuns. But when Holy Cross, St. Joseph’s and St. Peter and Paul/Sacred Heart schools consolidated into Trinity School, two nuns transferred. That left only the beloved Sister Cecile, beginning her 47th year of teaching.

“When I started, the teachers were all sisters,” she said. “Today, I’m the only one left.”

Sister Cecile, barely 5 feet tall – some of her students rival her in height – comes across as friendly and nurturing. She takes being the only nun in stride.

“It’s a privilege to be able to teach and keep on going,” she said. “God is leaving me behind for a purpose, a reason.”

Sister Cecile grew up in Saco as one of five children in a Franco-American family. She attended Catholic schools, but pushed away the idea of becoming a nun. The idea came back when she was 20, and she enrolled in a convent in Hudson, N.H.

Once engrossed in training, she knew she’d made the right decision. But it meant leaving her Air Force boyfriend, Charles, out of her life.

When she told him she was going to become a nun, “We had a little argument. We broke up,” she said. Years later her mother told her Charles came back to check on her and see if she was happy.

“He told my mother, ‘If she ever comes out, tell her I’m waiting.’ But I never came out.”

Through the years she has often prayed for him. He was a good man, she said, but she has no regrets. “If God had wanted me to marry, that would have been the choice. But God asked differently, so I followed my heart.”

Love is the key

The hardest part of becoming a nun was leaving her family, especially her 3-year-old brother, with whom she had a close relationship.

But soon, many other children filled her life. The first class she taught was in 1960 in Massachusetts: 65 students in the morning and 67 in the afternoon.

The classes were huge, but students were much more docile, Sister Cecile said. They didn’t dare move or talk in class. “If you said, ‘I’ll have to call your parents,’ they’d cry.”

Class size has slowly decreased over the years, to today’s 17 third-graders.

“It’s getting better. Why quit now?” she said with a laugh.

Sister Cecile taught at schools in Caribou, Biddeford and Augusta before coming to Lewiston, where she has been for the past 14 years.

She says she loves her students, and she has certain expectations of them: that they behave and listen. If they do that, they’ll learn, she said. Her job is to teach them and to “show them how to love Jesus and others.” She does that, she said, by loving them.

She considers her ability to teach a gift.

“God gave me my health and everything I needed to teach: a sense of humor, love for the children. They keep me young.”

And when will she retire?

That’s up to God.

“If He says, ‘Tomorrow’s the end,’ then tomorrow’s the end. If He says, ‘You have 20 more years,’ I’ll just go on.”