What does it take to form a life of faith in an age of distraction, disaffiliation and deep uncertainty?
This fall, the Center for Catholic Studies invites you to explore this question through our fall lectures, focused on the Formation in Faith. Drawing from the Characteristics of Marianist Education, this series explores how people form and act on faith today — amid declining trust in institutions, the isolation of digital life, and growing anxiety about communities and society.
Escobedo Saint John’s Bible Lecture Series
Reading the Bible Today
Featuring Christopher McMahon, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of Theology, Saint Vincent College
Wednesday, Sept. 17
7 p.m. | University Center, Mengler Conference RoomChristopher McMahon, Ph.D., will speak on Reading the Bible Today. His lecture explores how Scripture speaks to a world marked by injustice, anxiety, and longing, inviting a faithful imagination shaped by both tradition and contemporary experience.
Christopher McMahon, Ph.D., is a Professor of Theology at Saint Vincent College. His teaching and research focus on the Gospels, Christology, ecclesiology and the relationship between theology and contemporary culture. He is the author of Reading the Gospels: Biblical Interpretation in the Catholic Tradition and Understanding Jesus: Christology from Emmaus to Today.
Whether in the classroom, at the parish lectern or through service trips abroad, McMahon’s work asks how Christian belief holds up under pressure, and how it speaks to suffering, justice and hope.
About the speaker
Lin Great Speakers Series
Praying in the World Today
Featuring Sandra Yocum, Ph.D.
University Professor of Faith and Culture, University of Dayton
Wednesday, Oct. 15
7 p.m. | University Center, Mengler Conference RoomSandra Yocum, Ph.D., will present Praying in the World Today. A leading scholar of U.S. Catholic life, Yocum will reflect on how prayer is sustained and reshaped through cultural shifts, ordinary lives and a Church that is always in formation.
Sandra Yocum, Ph.D., is a leading scholar of U.S. Catholic life and thought, with a deep interest in how theology takes root in ordinary lives. At the University of Dayton, where she has taught since 1992, she holds the University Professorship in Faith and Culture. Her work explores the complexity of Catholic identity in the 19th and 20th centuries, and her leadership in national academic societies reflects a long-standing commitment to both scholarship and ministry. Rooted in the Marianist tradition, Yocum approaches theology as a way of understanding how Catholic faith is lived, remembered and passed on in community.
About the speaker
Contact Us
For more information, contact the Center for Catholic Studies at centerforcatholicstudies@stmarytx.edu.