Sister Nicole Trahan: The Mess as a Grace
In this episode of Messy Jesus Business, Sister Julia Walsh talks with Sister Nicole Trahan about inclusivity and equity in the Church, privilege and the importance of imagining new ways to share power.
We are endangered species, but Franciscan values could save us
At my new home in Chicago, I can visit the shore of Lake Michigan, and I like to go there to pray. From my spot on a concrete slab, all that is visible to me that is “natural” is water and sky. Everything else — the concrete, the fence, the shoreline — has been constructed…
On parenting, poverty, and privilege
It’s been two months since our family abruptly said goodbye to the mission we were serving in Honduras. We left because our five-year-old daughter came down with dengue fever, a nasty mosquito-borne illness that becomes even nastier if contracted a second time. In someone who has already had the illness, a second exposure can result…
Learning to abide in care
What does it mean to be a community of care? How can we deepen in our care for one another in a world so caught up in efficiency and the self-protection of individualism?
Christian resistance in the style of St. Francis
It’s indisputable that today’s signs of the times point to heartache, injustice, division and confusion. The truth seems to be debatable. The persecutions of the little ones — from immigrant children, refugees, victims of natural disasters and targets of sexual assault; those who are on the margins — often are the ones who bear the…
Headlines and prophets: a conversation
McDonald’s workers go on strike over sexual harassment “Yes, I’m on my way to visit you with Judgement. I’ll press compelling evidence against sorcerers, adulterers, liars, those who exploit workers, those who take advantage of widows and orphans, those who are inhospitable to the homeless — anyone and everyone who doesn’t honor me.” In North…
Listening to and praying with the cries of the children at the border
Like everyone else who understands that the Bible is a book that calls us to love without limit, I am heartbroken by the splitting of families at the U.S./Mexico border.
Love in the midst of the mess
You are dreading another meal of ramen noodles and canned vegetables, but you know that’s all that’s left in the cupboard, that it’s the best you can offer your son tonight. You’re thinking about this as you enter the dimly lit child care center to pick him up, with hunger pulling on your stomach, only…
Dead man on the sidewalk
He is lying in the middle of the street, wrapped in a blanket, semiconscious. Earlier, someone was concerned enough to call the paramedics. The paramedics picked him up by the arms, dragged him to the sidewalk, determined he did not need medical transport, and left. When the paramedics find him, nobody is with him. No…
A troubled conscience
On June 20, Pope Francis visited the gravesites of two Italian priests who were well-known for the ministry among the poor and their opposition to war. These men were prophets. When I think of someone like them, closer to home, it’s Joshua Casteel. Joshua grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, enlisted in the United States…
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