Dear FCJ friends and supporters, 

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Today, I'm writing to ask for your help to support the FCJ Retreat and Conference Centre (FCJ Christian Life Centre) — your oasis of peace in the heart of our city. The FCJ Centre exists to serve you, your family and your community by providing a variety of high-quality programs and services, as well as by hosting a variety of non-profit organizations that use our beautiful Conference facilities. 

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In these challenging times that we all hope are moving increasingly to being ‘post-covid’, our annual Giving Campaign is critical to us, and we need your generous support. Giving and pledging enable us to continue our exciting and life-changing ministry at the FCJ Centre. Along with the rest of the world, the FCJ Centre has come through a tough time. The sudden death last December of our Director, Denise DeNeve, has meant that we at the Centre have essentially been in transition for the past year. 

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However, the Centre is still moving forward. Because of YOU, we are still here. We're here because of your kindness, prayers, and support.  THANK YOU for your generosity. The Centre was able to keep almost all its staff and has been fully operational since May. We have had a time of re-opening and growth in 2022 that has been wonderful to see. 

So, there is great reason to HOPE! By the end of 2022, we expect to have a new leadership team at the Centre, and we are starting a new chapter, a new moment, and a new life. 

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On this Giving Tuesday, we are trusting in your generosity while asking that you consider donating whatever amount you can give. We want also to invite you to be even more involved in the life of the Centre — as a volunteer, by attending one of our programs or sharing your ideas, or by helping to make the Centre better known. 

I would like to share two big works that the Centre’s staff and those who collaborate with us would like to focus on in the coming years.  We cannot do this without your help! 

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1. The Greening of the FCJ Centre – One of the most critical and urgent issues we need to address is Mother Earth. At the FCJ Centre, we commit to take part in spreading awareness and living out of Pope Francis’ encyclical – Laudato Sí, the Call to Care for our Common Home.  

• The Creator of all calls us to practice a new way of living, one that is good and true and beautiful. (LS 205) 

• As we delve into Laudato Sí journey, the effects of our encounter with Jesus become evident in our relationship with the world around us. (LS 217) 

• By deepening our contemplative awareness of the whole of creation, we want to help each other to reflect constantly on how our lifestyle decisions, small or large, affect the earth and the poorest peoples of the earth. 

 

2. Support for Mental Health – We are in a time of general crisis around mental health in our society. We are living in a wounded world and more than ever, we need the warmth of community and a support system. We need to listen attentively and authentically and be present to our loved ones and to the people that need our presence. Through spiritual companionship, spiritual direction, counselling, and programs that support new moms, youth, and young adults, the unemployed, and others who are undergoing a stressful time in their lives, the FCJ Centre strives to be here for everyone. 

• We have a pool of trained program facilitators and resource people who are experts in their fields of work and share their gifts with the FCJ Centre. The work is always heart-to-heart, witnessing to what God has done in our lives and in our world, and all are welcome to join that story of redemption.  

• We hope to help others make explicit in their life, what is implicit in their heart. Our spirituality of companionship leads to the Scripture image of God as Emmanuel — God is with us. God is close to us, God desires our friendship, God companions with us and we companion with God. We live Ignatian spirituality — Finding God in All Things ... in every circumstance, in our day-to-day endeavours, in the people we meet, in everything.  

• We hope to help others not just to talk to God but also to listen. Prayer is both listening and talking, an expression of companionship.

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How will your financial help contribute to the society we live in? 

The FCJ Centre is addressing ‘Laudato sí’ and social issues such as mental health, refugees and new immigrants, etc., but we are also addressing the fundamental issue — helping people become their best selves, know their purpose in life, and live a life of truth, enthusiasm and joy.   

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Where will your financial help go? 

Apart from programming, your financial help will help support the infrastructure in which services and programming can take place.  Although the FCJ Centre building was thoroughly renovated and renewed in 1980, that is still over forty years ago! 

Please consider giving a gift today. Your gift will help sustain the Centre as a place where people can experience companionship in their life journey.  
 

Your generous tax-deductible gift of $25, $100, $250, or more to the FCJ Christian Life Centre Annual Appeal will make a difference! Thank you in advance for your generous support!  

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Whitney Nagasan 
Executive Director

 

(If you haven't met me yet, I do hope you'll stop by to say “Hi” as I want to know YOU, our Centre friends and supporters. Here’s my email: director@fcjcentre.ca 

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Ways to DONATE: 

1.  Please click the link https://www.fcjcentre.ca/donate  

2. Or Call 403-228-4215  

3. Or Scan the QR Code below