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Sunday, July 6, 2014

I Am A Muskox

With all of my involvement in church-related things the past several years, I've had a desire to go deeper and learn more. One of the awesome things about being Catholic is having access to our teachings, and now in the modern and digital age, that is so much easier. One of the several ways I learn more about my faith is by following Catholic bloggers.

Sometimes Catholic bloggers are actually kind of a big deal and do more than just blog.

Dr. Taylor Marshall and family
Take Dr. Taylor Marshall for example. I've been a follower of his blog for a while now, and he started something called the New Saint Thomas Institute. Apparently a bunch of his readers/followers expressed interest in learning more about St. Thomas Aquinas, philosophy and theology in general that he decided to start his own institute in which to teach philosophy and theology using St. Thomas Aquinas as a guide. I mean, Dr. Taylor Marshall used to be a professor and a chancellor of a local small Catholic university and is very passionate about this stuff as evident by his blog.

When he announced the New Saint Thomas Institute, he promised a few things that were very enticing to me. He wanted it to be cheap and affordable to where you can gain a good understanding of theology without paying university-caliber fees. He also wanted to produce high quality teaching content and high quality videos.

I, being on a quest for a deeper and richer understanding of my Catholic faith, couldn't resist this idea of the New Saint Thomas Institute. Since I'm continually having to teach Catholicism to Catholics (and non-Catholics too), I need to be better equipped with better knowledge and understanding of my faith so that I may better share the truth with others. And St. Thomas Aquinas is a pretty legit saint and doctor of the Church...my TI-89 Titanium calculator is named after him! The works of St. Thomas Aquinas are such a wealth of Church teaching and theology.

While I wasn't in the first wave of people to sign up whenever Dr. Marshall opened up NSTI, I was for sure in the aftershocks, as it were. I pay a small monthly payment and have access to a growing amount of quality resources (blog posts, videos, forums, etc) to learn all the theological things. I think he's even offering a sort certificates for those who complete "courses"!

I'm pretty excited to be a member of NSTI! I just wish I had better time management skillz to keep up with new posts and content. But that's the nice thing about NSTI too--I can go at my own pace!

If you're at all interested in diving deeper into the faith and don't want to pay two arms and a torso for it, you can join the New Saint Thomas Institute!

So, there's a story behind it...but the mascot of the New Saint Thomas Institute is the muskox.

Tommy the Muskox
I am a muskox.
-JD

Dr. Taylor Marshall and family // TaylorMarshall.com
Tommy the Muskox // TaylorMarshall.com