Sr. Kristin Peters, FSPA, will be walking around Lake Mendota October 1-5 in solidarity with local environmental and Native groups to contest a northern Wisconsin pipeline. Read about her planned walk and ways you can join from wherever you are. Prayer resources are also available at the link.
Merry Christmas and blessings of the season from Messy Jesus Business! Please enjoy this piece from Sr. Julia Walsh, originally published in 2022. There is an ancient story that is our common heartbeat. It speaks to us, deeply, quietly and simply; its whispers are heard in the rhythms of our ordinary lives, in between the…
This is Part II of a two-part story. Click here to see Part I. The night I missed the pilgrims’ departure to honor the Virgen de Urkupiña, I imagined the procession getting further and further away… So I tried to pull the story of her appearance closer to me, but the various accounts I had…
In mid-August 2017 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, I was nearly finished with Spanish language studies and in no hurry to return home. There was so much I loved about this place: the mountains, always in the distance; “Amiga,” rather than “hey you,” as the standard term of address by strangers; the value placed on a meandering…
There is an ancient story that is our common heartbeat. It speaks to us, deeply, quietly and simply; its whispers are heard in the rhythms of our ordinary lives, in between the rushing activity of our regular days. As we move together and alone, the power of this ancient story is known and felt in…
Our home has a Christ room. The room is simple, outfitted with an enormous depiction of Rembrandt’s “Return of the Prodigal Son,” and remains intentionally open for short-term stays of all kinds. We have hosted family members and friends (and friends of friends), kindred community-cultivators, monks and nuns, refugees, respite-seekers and people yearning for imaginative…
Episode 52 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Stitcher | Email | RSS | More “Christ is The Way and whatever is in the way is The Way.” – Sister Eileen McKenzie IN THIS EPISODE: In this episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh talks with another Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration,…
Sister Julia Walsh and author Lisa Deam talk about pilgrimage as a spiritual practice and discipleship as a journey. They discuss the paradoxes of faith and being a contemplative, where we are called to be in the moment, while also moving toward God. And they share how loving history and being part of the Church is relational, messy work.
When I walked the Camino de Santiago, I survived on a steady diet of ham sandwiches and beer. I subjected my body to a pack that weighed more than was healthy for my frame, moved my feet over miles of terrain, felt my muscles fatigue and my flesh blister and bleed. Every day, somewhere along…
We arrive at the memorial already soaked. The rain has been pouring down for about an hour, making our one little umbrella woefully insufficient for our entire group. We huddle in the cab, unwilling to take that first step out into the dark, wet city. We are five Catholic sisters from different corners of the…
Last summer my partner and I spent a month in Ireland. Below is a reflection I wrote after climbing Croagh Patrick, an ancient pilgrimage site where St. Patrick was said to have fasted for 40 days in the 5th century. Up the holy mountain. Following a stream of stones and prayers into the mist. The…
Weeks before departing for my Holy Week Camino pilgrimage in April, I am out for one of my practice walks. Bundled into layers of winter clothing, I cross through muddy, grayish-tan grass crusted partly by winter’s snow melting into the thawing ground. It is Lent: the season of awakening, of emergence, of spring. I am…
