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From Blueprints to the Summa: Building the Kingdom with Saint Thomas Aquinas
She was planning on becoming a construction or project manager. However, the Lord had other plans for her, as she explained: “I became employed by the Lord, to build His kingdom one student at a time.”
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February 17, 2026
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Alumni
For some, the phrase “rigorous academic study” sounds intimidating; for Sister Theresa Joseph, O.P., it was an invitation. In a recent conversation with Sister Theresa Joseph (STB ’23), I was struck by her frequent emphasis on the academic intensity of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception (PFIC). Rather than finding this daunting, Sister experienced it as life giving and life transforming. “I didn’t begin advanced studies to become an intellectual guru,” she explained, “but in order to live my religious life better.”
For Sister, the Dominican Friars’ approach elucidated that study is a formative act: when the intellect is rightly informed, it transforms the entire person. By upholding high standards, the professors didn’t just offer a grade; they offer the authentic teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, and they ask the best from their students, a gift she grew to appreciate precisely because of the challenge it required. She also had always wanted to study the Summa, and knew that she could receive that at DHS.
Sister Theresa Joseph Anh Nguyen is a perpetually professed member of the Dominican Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province, located in Houston, TX. She recently shared her journey of studies at the PFIC, as well as where she is currently assigned. Before becoming a Dominican Sister, Sister Theresa Joseph studied architecture as an undergrad and then earned her Masters in Business Administration. She was planning on becoming a construction or project manager. However, the Lord had other plans for her, as she explained: “I became employed by the Lord, to build His kingdom one student at a time.”
While Sister had long desired to study Scripture and teach at the University, it was not something her community has typically been engaged in as an apostolate. Sister was happily satisfied teaching PK-2nd grade religion, and forming young souls in the faith. In what Sister recognizes as Divine Providence, a series of events happened during the time of the pandemic in which a variety of assignments were simply not coming to fruition, and so her Superior decided that perhaps advanced studies would be an option.
When researching institutions, the PFIC stood out as the only option offering consistent in-person classes—a priority for Sister, despite the lack of a local community in D.C. Sister elaborated on her preference for in-person classes. Drawing on her experience from teaching the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program, she believes that students learn better when all the senses are engaged and when they have a relationship with the teacher. “Virtual programs can hinder serious learning,” she asserts, “because the absence of a personal relationship with the teacher affects how the material is received.” For her, being physically present in the classroom fostered a deeper level of commitment, exchange of ideas and a more fruitful reception of the Dominican charism.
Sister Theresa Joseph is currently writing her tesina towards an STL degree in Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America, building on the Thomistic foundation she received at the PFIC. She is exploring the topic, “Mary and the head of her enemy.” She remembers even from her childhood seeing statues of Mary, standing on a serpent. Now, she is grappling with how Mary participates in our redemption. Is the image of her crushing the serpent’s head merely a pious devotion? Sister uses Aristotelian and Thomistic principles as building blocks to answer this question. She explained, “As Christ’s humanity serves as a conjoined instrument of His divinity in the salvation of humanity, so is Mary an instrumental cause in Christ’s redemptive work. Her Fiat at the Annunciation, her motherhood at the Incarnation, and her intercession at Cana initiates the chain of causes that moved Christ to Calvary, the place where the head of the serpent is crushed.”
One of the greatest gifts Sister took from the PFIC was a unified theological picture. Though she had taken theology courses before, she had a hard time seeing how everything connected and fit together. Studying the Summa Theologiae systematically—moving from the Trinity to creation, the human person, Christology, Sacraments, and finally to Eschatology—allowed the pieces to click into place. Now, she is eager to share this holistic vision with her future students, helping them realize their full potential as Catholics.
“My intellect was formed and my spiritual life was transformed,” she says. “I realized that what I do as a moral human person is part of God bringing me back to Him.” As Sister’s own patroness Saint Thérèse, would tell us,
All the saints have understood and in a special way perhaps those who fill the universe with the radiance of the evangelical doctrine. Was it not from prayer that St Paul, St Augustine, St John of the Cross, St Thomas Aquinas, Francis, Dominic, and so many other friends of God drew that wonderful science which has enthralled the loftiest minds?
It is first through a life of prayer and for the sake of loving God, that the intellectual studies become fruitful. This contemplation allows us to gaze on Christ, and Sister Theresa Joseph is now once again contemplating Christ with Mary, as she further engages in her tesina writing.
Sister shared that when she expressed gratitude to her Superior for the gift of further study, her Superior responded: “Study is a gift for your religious life and for the community.” The fruits of these studies are truly not just a gift for oneself, but for the hope of the world. May we all be granted the grace to learn to better appreciate the gift of contemplating the truths of our faith, through prayer and diligent study!
1 Thérèse. Story of a Soul : The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Second edition. Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1976. (Ms C, 36r).
