Search Results for: saints – Page 33

The following is an excerpt from Franciscan Media’s interview with Garrett Galvin, OFM, the president of the Franciscan School of Theology, for Ep. 7 of our Off the Page Podcast.

God has a way of hooking us. God hooked me through academic study. As a freshman in college, I was taking a Medieval History course when I was assigned The Little Flowers of St. Francis. I hated it. I found it overly sentimental and syrupy. I also longed for the kind of spiritual community the book showed me was possible. And that’s how God hooked me: by introducing me to something I rejected on the one hand, and found compelling on the other. It was the semester I left institutional Christianity and started to search for God.

“If the degree would look good on your resume, go for it!” That was Dad’s response when I told him that I was thinking about getting a master’s degree in Franciscan theology. As a parent, Dad was particularly concerned about the practical reasons for my embarking on a two-year program of study when I was already just a few years away from retirement. From Dad’s perspective, my decision to go back to school must have appeared impulsive.