Studying at the Seminary: A Family Affair

By her own admission, Julia Manini has always been “enchanted with learning.” It’s a passion she likely comes by honestly. When she decided to pursue a Master in Religious Education after obtaining a BA in Education, she enrolled at St. Augustine’s Seminary along with her father and brother-in-law.

“It was really such a beautiful time to experience my father and brother-in-law in a different capacity,” she recalls. “We would often leave class and continue our discussions about what had come to the fore. We would pray the rosary sometimes on the way home. There were just so many different organic events that the studies of Theology at the Seminary facilitated. My studies at the Seminary are one of the richest experiences across my personal, academic, and professional trajectories. It made me feel most alive…most fully human.”

She later obtained a Doctorate in Educational Leadership at Western University. She now works as the Principal of Josyf Cardinal Slipyj School within the Toronto Catholic District School Board. But she credits her time at St. Augustine’s Seminary, where she obtained her Master’s in 2010, as seminal in shaping her personhood.

“The understanding garnered by the study of theology and its poignant application to our journey through this world is not only a remarkable experience but a privileged way of knowing and of being.  Such a journey has been instrumental in deepening my purpose as a leader, as a principal, as a wife, as a mother and as a woman in communion with others.  All of the pieces of who I have been shaped and formed by my work at the Seminary.”

That is particularly true, she says, in her professional life as a leader.

“My formation at the Seminary has fostered what I believe to be a more enlightened approach to encountering others. Often in my role, I am, in the traditional sense, the leader, a title whose nomenclature assumes the presence of followers.  Yet, I have come to know that leadership does not necessarily equate to followership. For people to want to follow, they have to be lit in some capacity, by the ways of the leader.  For me, my studies in theology were the genesis of this understanding and have led me to seek a reciprocity of light-giving, a co-leadership of sorts, where each of us ignites sparks in the other that lead us to live out our lives as true images of God.  Such an understanding requires a more nuanced approach, a more awakened understanding of relationship grounded in faith and strengthened by my studies at the Seminary.”

She says her studies at St. Augustine’s introduced her to a more holistic approach to moving alongside communities- offering a way of seeing the narratives of others through the compassionate eyes of God.

“In the Seminary, you are taught to look at that encounter with the other as the most important piece. Whether that has to do with how you approach morality, sacrament, conflict or the myriad of ways our humanity unfolds in our day-to-day living. It’s really in that space between two people that we come to experience the holy transformative nature of grace. My studies at St. Augustine’s taught me to look at that space with greater wisdom.”

She strongly encourages anyone interested in further deepening their understanding of the faith to consider studies at St. Augustine’s.

“I worked full-time and studied part-time, offering a flexibility that weaves well into our lived and often very complex realities. But I did take on the studies rather aggressively. The program is rigorous, but it is so rewarding and so enriching. Of course, there are deadlines, exams, and papers, but it was always so enriching to sit down with a Papal Encyclical, or an esteemed theologian and to understand more deeply who we are as a community of believers.  It was in that space and time that I came to know more fully the human condition, and to approach our living of it with compassion, faith, wisdom, and above all else, love.”