Our General Chapter has just been convoked by the FCJ General Superior Sr Bonnie Moser. It will be held in October 2025 and the theme is In God Alone.  The Sisters ask for your prayer as we begin our preparations for this special international meeting held every six years.

Prayer for General Chapter 2025

Creator God,
trusting in your faithfulness
we place our hope in You alone …

As we prepare for General Chapter 2025
let us listen to our world and our church today.

We long for the gift of Your Spirit
that we may discern well.
We want to be faithful as You are faithful.

Help us all to come
to this time of General Chapter
with minds and hearts wide open,
empty vessels ready to receive,
and to respond with fidelity and joy
to whatever you ask of us.

Above all loving God,
help us to companion each other more consciously
during this time of Chapter preparation.

We place all our hope in you. Amen.

The what and why of a General Chapter

A general chapter is always a key moment for each FCJ Sister as we take time to look at our individual lives and our life as a group across the world so that we may be led by the Holy Spirit into the future.

Our Constitutions describe a general chapter as entering in a special way into the paschal mystery, in the hope of continual conversion and renewal, individual and corporate so that we may search in faith for God’s will in the contemporary church and the contemporary world. (Cons. 276)

The quality of any General Chapter depends on all FCJs since the outcome of the chapter depends on the quality of the preparation, on each FCJ contributing to the best of her ability to the preparation process.

General Chapters are held to discern the future directions of the FCJ Society and to elect members of our Central Leadership. This Chapter will be electing a general superior and her assistants.

What is the General Chapter theme?

The theme chosen for the 2025 General Chapter and reflected in the logo above is:

In God alone

Our foundress Marie Madeleine d’Houët lived and ministered in a time where the Cross was a contemporary reality in her life, as it is in our own time. She inspires us and witnesses in her life that her hope was in God alone. Part X of our Constitutions speaks of the preservation and development of the body of our FCJ Society:

In [God] alone must be placed the hope that he will preserve and carry forward what he deigned to begin for his service and praise and for the aid of his people.

Constitutions 351

Who participates in the General Chapter?

In a very real way each FCJ contributes to the General Chapter by involving herself fully in the preparation for the Chapter and by her prayerful support both before and during the Chapter. This preparation started when our General Superior convoked the Chapter on 28th October 2024.

The members of the General Chapter include our central leadership and the leaders and elected delegates of each of the Areas of the FCJ Society.

Once the Chapter has finished it once again becomes the responsibility of each FCJ to take the output of the Chapter and discern how to live them out, both individually and communally.