FCJ Bicentenary 1820-2020
The Congregation of the Faithful Companions of Jesus was founded in France in 1820. The bicentenary celebrations will run from the 21st September 2019, birthday of our foundress, Marie Madeleine d’Houët, until the Feast of Christ the King in November 2020.
Le bon Dieu conduit tout lui-même: God – Beauty, Truth, Goodness – is doing everything.
Follow our celebration on the Bicentenary News page and on social media #FCJ200.
There will be a host of events to celebrate this Bicentenary Year:
- A Day of Kindness to launch the Bicentenary Year of Celebration.
- Planting trees around the world. The sisters in Europe have committed to planting 10 trees for each community group in the bicentenary year.
- The staging of a theatre production based on the life of Marie Madeleine and the expansion of the Society she founded; the play has been commissioned from Rise Theatre and will be performed in the UK, Ireland and other English-speaking locations where FCJs and their Companions in Mission live and work.
- Another live-theatre piece in the form of an interview with Marie Madeleine created by Rooney and Punyi Educational Theatre Productions. Watch a video of this piece.
- Various internal celebrations in FCJ Schools and Spirituality Centres. Followed them using the #FCJ200 hashtag.
- Local radio interviews and presentations in different parts of the world (Merseyside, Edmonton).
- A new song in English has been composed for use in FCJ schools and in parishes where FCJs and their Companions in Mission live and work. There is also a celebratory song in Spanish.
- Liturgical and para-liturgical celebrations in the locations where FCJ sisters live or have ministered in the past (see our Events page).
- New materials on the Foundress and the history of the Faithful Companions of Jesus have been made available.
- Establishment of a Scholarship Fund at the Centre for Catholic Studies (CCS) at Durham University in the NE of England to support formation of Catholic theologians and scholars
- A commemorative painting is in preparation and will be published online.
- Unpublished material from FCJ archives will be available online.
Follow our celebration on the Bicentenary News page and on social media #FCJ200.
May the celebrations be a source of new life and strengthened hope.
