Kevin Lowry is a convert to the Catholic Church and the COO of the Coming Home Network. Kevin has a book coming out next year from Our Sunday Visitor on the topic of becoming a saint through work, and he has just started a blog:
Kevin is a great guy with some good insights and everyone should check out his blog – it will be worthwhile!
I’ll be speaking at another Theology on Tap next week, this time in Ellicott City, Maryland. Here are the details:
Where: Cacao Lane (upstairs bar), Ellicott City, Maryland
When: Tuesday, May 24th at 7:30pm
Topic: Scripture and the Liturgy: How our participation in the Liturgy deepens our knowledge of the Bible
If you are in the Baltimore area, please stop by!
This past weekend I was at Franciscan University of Steubenville for graduation ceremonies for my Master’s Degree in Theology (see the convoluted story of my Master’s here). It was a great time, as I got to see good friends and former professors – and it is always good to visit the campus.
Here are some pictures:
Before graduation (notice the tassle on my right)
With my kids after the ceremony
With my wife, who practically earned a Master's herself from helping me.
I’ve never been a big fan of “sharing” small groups, so I thought this was pretty funny:
H/t: Byzantine, TX
Back in January 1994 I entered the M.A. in Theology program at Franciscan University of Steubenville. I was six months out of college, having gotten a B.S. in Systems Analysis at Miami University (Ohio). After a brief stint in a pro-life organization, I decided to return to school in a subject that I loved – theology. Little did I know that it would take me over seventeen years to complete the program.
Because my undergrad was unrelated to theology, I had to take almost all the prerequisites for the program. This meant taking six undergrad theology classes. For the next year and a half, I took these classes, along with four graduate foundations classes. During this time, I was the consummate bookworm. I often meet people today who attended Franciscan during the time I was there, but I neither remember them nor do they remember me. I literally had my head in a book more than 10 hours a day. Each day would run something like this:
During this time I also became engaged (why she wanted to marry such a bookworm was beyond me). Needless to say, we didn’t go out much. 
But by Spring of 1995, I had run out of money and I didn’t want to get married and immediately get into wads of debt. So I made the hard decision to stop the program, still needing eight grad classes to finish. I moved to Maryland and got a computer programming job and hoped that it would be a minor pit stop before returning to the program.
And after two years, it appeared that I would go back to school. I got a job at a small (i.e. one-person) Internet company (before many knew what exactly the Internet was), and was allowed to move back to Steubenville and try to complete my degree while working from home. However, this was late 1997, right before the great Internet boom. The company I worked for went from 2 employees to 300 in less than two years, and I soon was managing a staff of 100 in Steubenville. Not surprisingly, I didn’t ever find time to actually take a class. After three years, I had given up my dream of a Master’s degree and decided to transfer back to the company’s headquarters in Maryland. However, things didn’t work out and I left the company to start my own software development company a few months later. Also, my wife and I continued to be blessed with children, which of course re-arranges one’s priorities very quickly.
During this whole time, however, I never lost my love of theology. I continued to read theological books in my free time, from authors such as Congar, de Lubac, von Balthasar, and Ratzinger. My time at Franciscan had introduced me to a whole world of brilliant theological minds which I couldn’t get enough of. I was especially thankful for Dr. Scott Hahn’s reading lists, which listed authors I had never heard of but were great thinkers and theologians.
I continued to work at my software company, but it always nagged at me that I had not completed my Master’s degree. I hate starting something and not finishing it. Then I discovered that I could take classes via distance education from Franciscan, and would not have to take any on campus since I had already taken all my foundational courses there. In 2007, although it had been over ten years since I left the program, I got special permission to start back up. So I began to take classes in my free time from home. For the next four years, I took my eight remaining classes (while writing two books). Finally, last Fall I finished my last class, and then took my comprehensive exams a few weeks ago.
Just today, I found out that I passed my comprehensive exams and completed my degree! I plan to go out to the graduation ceremony in May (ironically, the speaker at my graduation happens to be U.S. Representative Jeff Fortenberry, who was in the program with me in the mid-90’s [we even worked in the computer lab together]). How many people have their graduation speakers be someone they were in the program with?
I don’t usually write about my personal achievements on this blog, but I am very happy to have completed this degree so many years after beginning it and I wanted to share it with others. Praise be to God for giving me this wonderful opportunity!
A few links that might be of interest while I keep my head in the books:
Why I Am Catholic: For Napoleon’s Answer to the Question “Who Is Jesus Christ?”
Lenten Reflections from the Monks at Norcia
Make Opening Day an official Cincinnati holiday
And finally: Go Reds!
This is awesome – I would have never thought my favorite Catholic musician would rock with my favorite Catholic biblical scholar:
h/t: Marcel
Two new blogs have come to my attention:
The first is Speaking of Scripture, which is hosted by the editors of the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, a series I highly recommend. If their work on the CCSS is any indication, then their blog will be quite useful for deepening our understanding of God’s Word.
The second blog is The Browning Version, a blog with the tag-line “Catholicism in Practice” – it also looks to be quite good!
Check them out!
Note: I meant to post the following last week, but it fell through the cracks. So to make the first talk, you’ll need to enter your time machine and go back to this past Sunday:
I will be speaking at two parishes in the coming week. On March 13th at 6pm I’ll be speaking at St. Katherine Drexel parish in Frederick, Maryland. And on March 19th at 9am I’ll be speaking at St. John the Baptist parish in Tipp City, Ohio. At both parishes I’ll be discussing how Catholics can personally encounter our Lord through their reading of Scripture. Hope to see you there!
A few links for your reading (and viewing) pleasure:
Check them out!
G.K. Chesterton once wrote that original sin is “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved” – all we have to do is read the daily newspaper or watch the local news. I thought of that quote while reading this parody from The Onion:
Nation Somehow Shocked By Human Nature Again
BRANDON, SD—As more details emerged of Friday’s horrible but relatively commonplace manifestation of human nature in Brandon, SD, citizens nationwide somehow managed to enter a state of shock, apparently struggling to comprehend an act that, throughout history, has happened thousands upon thousands of times.
In the wake of the tragedy, Americans have expressed a deep sense of bewilderment, though it is unclear why, given that events just like the one Friday have taken place frequently throughout their lifetimes.
“I still can’t believe what happened,” said 48-year-old Linda Durland of Atlanta, who for some reason has been unable to extrapolate from literally millions of previous examples the fact that such acts inevitably repeat themselves. “It’s just unthinkable.”
Despite there being nothing unusual about the incident in Brandon, the media has descended upon the small town in droves, somehow finding a way to portray the event as if it were a novel phenomenon or some sort of aberration within human society, an assertion that even a cursory glimpse at the species’ violent past would immediately disprove.
“You never expect something like this to happen,” said 29-year-old Brandon resident Janine Ackerman, though she would be justified in expecting something like this to happen, and then happen again and again and again, and so on, ad infinitum. “It just came out of nowhere.”
The most important virtue for building a life of prayer is perseverance. Remember that as you watch this video:
I just returned from New York where I was the guest on Fr. Benedict Groeschel’s Sunday Night Live show on EWTN. I took my oldest daughter Anna with me and we had a great time. While I was there I was also able to visit one of the convents of the Sister of Life and as well as meet up with the priest who celebrated my wedding, Fr. Conrad Osterhaut, CFR. Below are a couple of pictures from the trip.
When the show is posted on YouTube I’ll put up a link.
I want to highly recommend the latest issue of Touchstone magazine. Why? Not because I wrote an article in it, but because Nathan Schlueter did. As the Touchstone blog notes:
Nathan Schlueter writes insightfully and poetically on “The Romance of Domesticity: Marriage Thrives in Reality, Not in Our Dreams,” something Madame Bovary never knew, but we can.
You might be asking, who is Nathan Schlueter? He is a professor at Hillsdale College, but more importantly (at least to me), he was my roommate during my undergrad days at Miami University and the most proximate reason I am a Catholic. It was Nate who first introduced me to the truths of the Catholic faith, and ended up being my sponsor when I was received into the Catholic Church.
I haven’t read the Touchstone article yet, but I’m sure it is fantastic – go buy your copy now!
…so I’ll just give you the facts:
Listen for yourself from the “Third Eagle of the Apocalypse”:
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I am the Director of Evangelization for the Diocese of Venice in Florida.
I began my study of the Catholic faith in 1991 as an Evangelical Protestant, converting to the Catholic Church in 1993.
I regularly speak to parish groups and other organizations on a variety of topics - contact me to schedule a talk for your group.
You can email me at eric@ericsammons.com.
