Eleanor
Milne's dedication to the spiritual in art stems from her lifelong commitment
to the Roman Catholic Church. Her religious art takes shape in a number
of media. Milne produced stained-glass windows as commissions from churches
of all denominations. Carved wall panels included images of the Holy Family
and Christ Stilling the Waters. Private chapels with carved altars and tabernacles
were commissioned, as well as Baptismal fonts. She also made crucifixes.
Having had one blessed, she realized she could not sell it and it remains
in her possession. Portraits, engravings, ink sketches and even postcards
of religious images were produced by Milne.
Her first large religious
commission was in 1949, when she spent eighteen months producing Our
Lady of Fatima and Three Children, a monumental group of four
figures for the Jesuit Fathers in Beaconsfield, Québec. Milne credits
this commission with her decision to go to graduate school at Syracuse
University in New York, because she saw a spiritual connection between herself
and Ivan Mestrovic, the Yugoslav émigré teaching there. 
In 1954 Milne participated in an exhibition of religious art at the Chateau
Laurier in Ottawa, showing seven carved wood panels now in private collections.
The critics linked the style of the carved wood panels by Milne directly
to Mestrovic. The collapse of her work into an easy comparison with Mestrovic
saddened Milne who by that point had developed her own distinctive style.
Milne wrote of her dedication to religious art in an early sketchbook, "... the decoration of churches should not be looked upon lightly or merely as a commission. The first aim of the artist should be the glorification of God through his work and the secondary aim—his work as aid to the layman."