Your generosity helps create places where people encounter God through creation, community, education, and ecological restoration.
“Here, care for the earth becomes a practical expression of reconciliation — with God, among ourselves, and with creation.”
Dear friends of the Jesuits — Peace of Christ!
Growing up in Saskatchewan taught me that our lives depend on the land. When it is healthy, communities flourish. When we neglect it, future generations receive less than they deserve. From my earliest years, I understood the natural world as a gift from God entrusted to us — not simply as a resource to be consumed. Care for creation has always been an essential part of my Catholic faith.
Ignatius Jesuit Centre (IJC) gives us an extraordinary opportunity to put that faith into practice. Its 600 acres encompass productive farmland and protected native ecosystems. The grounds are also home to a Jesuit cemetery, where our brothers rest in the very earth they once tended. Their witness reminds us that IJC is more than property; it is a sacred inheritance.
IJC brings faith into conversation with agriculture and ecological restoration. Farmers work the soil while conservation partners help damaged habitats recover. Visitors discover God’s presence in the beauty of the landscape and the peace of time spent outdoors. Here, care for the earth becomes a practical expression of reconciliation — with God, among ourselves, and with creation. This is the ecological conversion Pope Francis described in Laudato Si’ (2015) and called the Church to embrace.
With your help, we can welcome even more groups from across Canada to this remarkable place. New classrooms will bring people together for instruction and conversation. Educational resources will support hands-on learning in the gardens, forests, and wetlands. Improved paths and restored habitats will open more of the property for exploration and reflection. A dedicated space for the celebration of the Eucharist and personal prayer will serve as a daily reminder that care for creation begins with love for the Creator.
Over the coming year, we are seeking to raise $1 million for this expansion. This investment will broaden the reach of IJC and support the next century of Jesuit presence on the land. It will strengthen a ministry that draws people closer to God and encourages responsible stewardship.
I invite you to make a gift today. Your generosity will help people learn, pray, and deepen their relationship with creation. Together, we can ensure that Ignatius Jesuit Centre remains a place where faith takes root and ecological awareness grows.
The fields, forests, and gardens of Ignatius Jesuit Centre offer more than beautiful surroundings. Through the emerging Centre for Integral Ecology, they become places where people can learn, reflect, and encounter God. Integral ecology recognizes that the health of the natural world is inseparable from human dignity, strong communities, and our relationship with the Creator.
This first season of programming has also been a season of discovery. Participants are tending a Three Sisters garden — where corn, beans, and squash are grown together because each contributes to the health of the others. Guided by a Catholic educator, an Indigenous knowledge keeper, and our farming instructor, participants are learning how cooperation and reciprocity are present within the natural world. One participant shared that returning to the garden every two weeks had become a welcome counterbalance to the stress of her working life — a place to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with God’s creation.
Children share in this discovery through The Great Family of Earth. Stories and hands-on activities help them recognize that people, plants, animals, water, and sky belong to one living community. They learn that caring for the natural world also means caring for the people whose lives depend upon it.
Programs grounded in Laudato Si’ and integral ecology extend this learning to participants across Canada — both in person and online. They connect the Catholic tradition with practical questions about food, water, land, and the choices we make each day.
Here, creation becomes more than something we study; it becomes a place of encounter with the Holy.
Each summer, the Community Gardens at Ignatius Jesuit Centre are transformed. Bare soil gives way to vegetables, flowers, colour, and life. Individuals and families shape their plots with creativity and care — adding hand-painted signs, favourite plants, and quiet places to sit. Each garden reflects the people who tend it.
Food, however, is only part of the harvest. Experienced gardeners share seeds, practical advice, and knowledge passed down through generations. Neighbours become friends over watering cans and wheelbarrows. Families experience the satisfaction of growing their own food, while children discover that a healthy harvest begins with good soil, patient hands, and time.
The gardens make visible the relationship between healthy land and healthy communities. They provide food — but they also cultivate friendship, confidence, and a sense of belonging. Here, each growing season produces a harvest that extends well beyond the garden.
Ignatius Jesuit Centre has become one of the first sites in Ontario to participate in an innovative conservation project with an unlikely ally — a tiny moth.
Wetlands provide habitat for plants and wildlife while storing water and reducing the effects of flooding. Many are now threatened by invasive Phragmites: a tall, fast-spreading reed that crowds out native plants and leaves wildlife with fewer places to feed and shelter.
Working with researchers and partner organizations, our conservation team introduced stem-boring moths whose larvae feed only on Phragmites. After years of scientific study, the moths offer a promising form of biological control. This means using one carefully studied living organism to limit another. By weakening the invasive reeds while leaving native plants unharmed, the moths may give the wetland a better opportunity to recover.
This project reflects the collaborative nature of ecological restoration. Researchers study the results, volunteers assist with the work, land managers care for the site, and community partners contribute their experience. Restoration does not happen quickly. It requires patience, careful observation, and a willingness to learn from the land.
Monitoring will continue in the years ahead. What we learn at IJC will contribute to broader efforts to restore wetlands and strengthen their ability to support life. It is patient work, but each recovering habitat offers reason for hope.
Thank you for helping sustain programs that bring together faith, education, ecological restoration, and care for creation.