Based on Luke 4 I never have good news for Jesus. I deal in the gloom and doom. But that doesn’t make me any less welcome in his home. I lower my head as I meet his mother at the threshold, then allow myself a half grin as her arms wrap around me. I am…
This Advent, I’m reflecting on pigeons and finding an odd comfort in envisioning the Holy Spirit as a city bird. The violence of poverty in cities and the injustices in our world this year have me looking to these small and fraught creatures, surviving in the cracks of discarded places. In my neighborhood of Hyde…
You, the Holy, beckon but are just out of reach. Your light calls and continues beckoning. Are you still there? Sounds of silent screams fill the space where there is no light within me — tugging at my heart, filling voids in my heart with lies. Sunrays begin to stream in, beckoning, inspiring, lingering, loitering…
I was a little mystified when, in mid-November, I got an email ad announcing 25% off the price of Christmas decorations. The great day of feasting was not yet upon us, the calendar promised one more month of fall and yet, when I went to check out the sale, I couldn’t find autumnal decor items…
Note from Sister Julia, Messy Jesus Business host: This little corner of the internet is devoted to the messiness of religion and spirituality, as it relates to radical Gospel living. Part of being a follower of Jesus includes creating radically inclusive spaces, spaces that allow for the intersection of different spiritualities. That’s why I am…
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.
I recently sat across my desk from one of the prophets of the #SaveAsylum movement. The leaders of this organization are an eclectic group of migrants, activists, church and community members from Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, who united in the past year to restore access to asylum at the US-Mexico border. The prophet in front…
What image of Mary. the mother of God, do you remember seeing as a child? When you close your eyes and imagine Mary today, who do you see? What color is her hair? Her eyes? Her skin? What type of clothes is she wearing in your imagination? As a kid growing up in a tight-knit…
This womb of mine will not know the pangs of pregnancy. My skin will not tighten when another body becomes part of my flesh. My inner organs will not shift to make room; my ankles will not swell; my appetite will not increase because my body is making another person. This womb is empty, creased….
As I walked down the hall and into our parish’s Spanish language youth group meeting after a very trying and somewhat disappointing middle school lesson on the Ten Commandments, I was fully immersed in beleaguered-teacher mode. I entered and quickly began an Advent lesson on Mary. We began reviewing the stories of the Annunciation, the…
Lately a certain Gospel instruction is has been grinding challenge into my life, really giving my heart a doozy of a talking to. Jesus says it a lot, in many different ways: Do not be afraid. (Luke 1:30; Mark 5:36; Mark 6:50) Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? (Matthew 6:27)…
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me,…
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