Coffee & Writing

by Miriam Kavanagh

              Getting my master’s degree in theology had always skipped around my mind, but I worried about the money. Suddenly, God told me to go, and I was not so worried about the money anymore. However, when I was looking for online schools, I did want one that was inexpensive and that is what first drew me to Holy Apostles College and Seminary. Then, when I went to the website, before I explored anything, something in me told me this was the right school for me. Exploring the website was a dream, everything was amazing! Choosing Holy Apostles College and Seminary was easy for me to do.

              I thought I wanted to get my degree in theology to be a better novelist, but after this first semester as a personal interest student and having Philosophy 607 as my first course made my head spin. Wonderful theology suddenly felt like concrete, and scary philosophy felt like walking through a field of butterflies. I fell in love with the subject, spiritually, and as a writer. It occurred to me that if I want to write about people better, I should learn the questions and answers that we have all try to seek on different levels from different people.

All my writings tend to take a spiritual slant, and I have always tried to shy away from that because I want my writing to be accessible to people of all faiths. However, Vatican II solidified how I feel we should truly treat other religions: The Catholic Church looks with sincere respect upon those particular ways of conduct and of life, those rules and teachings which, though differing in many ways from what She holds and sets forth, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. (Nostra Aetate, 2) [i]

Religions can differ in so many ways, but underneath all of them there is one Truth and philosophy talks about those truths which connect us all.

Perhaps God wants me to be a spiritual novelist and now is the time for me to really study philosophy and learn about things that everyone in the world thinks about and harness it for my own writing. Even more important, maybe He wants me to get a hold on it for myself and to learn more about it for my own questions and spiritual awakening.

              Holy Apostles College and Seminary never ceases to amaze me. You never come across anyone with a grumpy disposition, even if they may feel it inside. The school feels like a family, because it feels like the way the world is supposed to be—kind. I like being able to sign my emails with “blessings” and I like seeing “God’s blessings” in other people’s emails, that’s an environment definitely worth studying in.     

              No one knows what the future holds, but I know that whatever my studies in philosophy hold, they are at Holy Apostles College and Seminary.

P.S. The class finished on April 18, 2025, Good Friday, and ever since then I have become even more in love with philosophy than when I started. What I especially admired is that famously Western philosophers, like St. Thomas Aquinas, learned from Arab philosophers, like Avicenna. What we study in philosophy in the Western world is also coming from the Eastern world, so we aren’t just getting one perspective.

I can’t wait to see what come next!

“The Thinker” by Auguste Rodin (1904)

Verba volant, scripta manent 

Spoken words fly away, written ones remain

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[i] https://www.usccb.org/committees/ecumenical-interreligious-affairs/interreligious