The Holy Spirit was at work at Los Angeles Religious Education Conference 2025, held Feb. 21-23 in Anaheim, California and attended by Sisters Laura Nettles, Julia Walsh and Rose Elsbernd, with partner in mission Jane Comeau. In the exhibition hall, the FSPA booth was randomly placed next to three organizations with ties to FSPA.
Cafe Justo was on our right. Cafe Justo is an FSPA Seeding a Legacy of Healing Grant recipient. They shared not only their coffee, but their mission. The FSPA connection with Cafe Justo started when Sister Joyce Blum returned to the border in Agua Prieta with Charlotte Willenborg and Tim Sullivan, affiliates with FSPA. Every day at 2 a.m., they would walk across the border to serve people who had been detained overnight and return to Mexico in the afternoon. Her close relationships in the region allowed her to see how Café Justo is reversing migration there. Below, Sisters Julia, Laura and Rose pose with the Cafe Justo staff.
To the left of our booth, Father Tony Ricard from the Archdiocese of New Orleans who serves as the director for the Office of Black Catholic Ministries. Father Tony credits Thea Bowman for his call to the priesthood. “What I loved about her was the fact that she was able to make everyone feel comfortable, even when she was challenging them on what they may be doing and what they may be saying. You know, back in the old days in the civil rights movement, we don't know what it was like to be one of these people who had to stand on the forefront of everything,” Ricard said during a 2025 interview linked here, The remarkable life of Sister Thea Bowman | News | fox13memphis.com.
And across from us, we met the women of Hallow prayer app. The app includes a prayer collection and songs by Sister Thea Bowman.
Left to right, Sister Laura Nettles and ValLimar Jansen; Sister Julia Walsh with Catholic Sisters from GivingVoice;
Hallow staff pose with a Messy Jesus Business t-shirt.
These were just a few of the important connections made. We met Julie, a woman who recently moved with her husband to Colorado. She’s searching for ways to deepen her faith during this time of transition. We introduced her to FSPA affiliation which sparked excitement. We met many catechists hungry to keep their students engaged. And to them, we distributed close to 300 folders which included three FSPA-designed lesson plans and vocation materials to take back to their parishes. The lesson plan topics:
- Why Religious Life?
- The Canticle of Creatures
- Franciscan Values
We also hosted Lisa Hendey, author and Catholicmom.com founder, at our booth for a live Messy Jesus Business podcast recording. Following her, we invited congress attendees to sit in the Messy Jesus Business hot seat and talk about the messiness of their faith. More than a dozen people shared their faith stories with us. The recordings will be used in future episodes.
Lisa Hendey, left, and Sister Julia Walsh prepare for a live recording of Messy Jesus Business podcast.
This year’s ReCongress theme calls us to compassion. How can we bring back what we learned to make our communities more compassionate? As speaker Sister Hilde Mateo offered, “We are afraid of what we don’t know, and that’s why we struggle with compassion. The mind was made to judge; remember, the mind is a tool but it can’t run us.”
For us, we learned the importance of stories and simple conversations. It’s easy to judge; but when you engage in conversation you learn someone’s story and you experience a conversion of the heart. As we packed up our booth, we huddled in prayer with Father Tony who thanked us for “doing the work.” Our hope is that our Franciscan messages shared throughout the weekend will go back to parishes and plant seeds of compassion.
**If you're interested in receiving copies of our RECongress 2025 lesson plans and vocations materials, email vocations@fspa.org.