Writing

Since 2010, Sister Julia has been publishing blogs, articles, poems, editorial columns, book reviews, and prayers online and in print. Her work centers around community, transformation, creativity, social justice, and Christianity.

Sister Julia is a regular contributor to Give Us This Day and Living Faith Catholic devotionals.

Selected Work

Prayers, Reflections, and Devotionals

• Lessons from the Lord’s Prayer (St. Anthony Messenger,  June 2021)
• How Do Words Become Flesh? (Image Journal blog, December 2018)

America Magazine

• I was diagnosed with a progressive eye disorder. It’s changed my understanding of the ‘God of Light.’ (August 2024)
• When perpetual adoration takes on a new meaning (April 2020)
• What we have learned 10 years after Postville, the largest immigration raid in U.S. history (June 2018)
• Changed, Not Ended: A view of religious life from a young sister (December 2013)

Global Sisters Report / National Catholic Reporter

• Spiritual practices for the fatigued and lonely (January 2022)
• Call for Creative Communion (April 2018)
• Trains in Heaven: Embracing the Mystery (January 2017)
• Redefining faith on El Camino (May 2017)

Other magazines and newspapers

• Transgender Catholics call the Church to listen says this Franciscan Sister (Outreach, April 2024)
• A Complicated Patriotism (Living City, June 2023)
• Educating ourselves and our children about critical race theory (La Crosse Tribune, October 2021)
• Letting the pandemic change us for the better (Chicago Sun Times, April 2020)
• Has social distancing put us in a double pandemic? (The Christian Century, March 2020)
• What are religious vows? (VISION Vocation Magazine, 2018)
• Being a companion through the mystery of suffering (U.S. Catholic, October 2016)

Sister Julia’s work is also featured in the following books:

Messy Jesus Business blog and podcast

Sister Julia founded the Messy Jesus Business blog in 2010 when she was a religion teacher at a Catholic high school as a way to reflect on having a constantly messy desk while teaching the Gospel to teenagers. The Messy Jesus Business website grew to become a resource center and a community full of passionate voices. Messy Jesus Business has published over 700 blog posts, podcasts, resources, prayers, and poems about radical Gospel living and the messiness of faith.

Sister Julia hosted the Messy Jesus Business podcast until 2025, featuring guests including Father Greg Boyle S.J., Sr. Norma Pimentel, M.J., Pádraig ÓTuama, Molly Burhans, Shane Claiborne, Robert Ellsberg, Sr. Teresa Maya C.C.V.I., Fr. James Martin, S.J., Liam Callanan, Dorothy Fortenberry, and Sister Helen Prejean CSJ.

Listen to the archive of episodes here or wherever you get podcasts.