BEAR — With two parents who are big believers in education, especially Catholic education, it should come as no surprise that Matanda Mondoa has continued her learning endeavors long past high school.
A 2011 graduate of Ursuline Academy in Wilmington, Mondoa recently earned a master’s degree in theology from Harvard University.
Her father is a medical doctor, and her mother has a PhD and is a teacher. They emigrated from Cameroon, where they were educated in Catholic schools. Mondoa was in middle school when she transferred to Ursuline.
“My mom believed in the power of Catholic education. They went through it as well in Cameroon. They felt that Catholic education would have a good impact for me as well here in the states,” she said recently at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Bear, where she is a parishioner.
“I think the experience I had at Ursuline certainly helped with the trajectory that I have taken,” she said.
During high school, Mondoa volunteered at Emmanuel Dining Room and with “various spiritual organizations. I took a world religions course as well in my junior year of high school, and that got me curious about learning other perspectives.”
Mondoa, 31, has been asked on several occasions why she chose to study religion.
“It’s down to not only connection to one’s own faith but also connection to how other people see the world,” she said. “The takeaway that I got with the masters is how we connect with other people. Religion and spirituality is one of the most personal ways that you get to know someone.”
A master’s in religion also allows her to look at her own faith with a depth that may not exist through simply reading the text or listening to a homily.
“As Catholics, we’re often encouraged to just go deeper to see what God has to say with the tenets of our faith and, more importantly, the actions that we take with our faith within or beyond us,” she said.
Father John McVoy met the Mondoa family during his first parish assignment as a seminarian at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. He is impressed with her work ethic.
“One of the things is her commitment to her goals that she set,” Father McVoy said. “It just brings a refreshing tone to people of her generation.”
He credits her parents for encouraging her along the way. Young people, he said, don’t always have that support.
“One cannot survive in this world without a supportive family, and they have been there,” he said.
There is a practical side to Mondoa’s degree. She said she could teach, enter religious life or be a theologian. In the age of the Internet, she continued, there are more options. She said her undergraduate degree in English, from the University of Delaware, can help her communicate a message that could make a difference.
Mondoa said the courses at Harvard matched what she was looking for. She said when she started her second one, she knew it was for her. At Ursuline, she had dreams of becoming a scientist and writer. She started college at Bryn Mawr College as a pre-med and English major, but as she says, she shifted from the literal to the spiritual.
Currently in a gap year, Mondoa is working at the student center at the University of Delaware as an audio-visual technician; her master’s work included a lot of video production.
She loves books and media. Her interests include films and novels along the lines of Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia. Mondoa said she used Marvel comic movies in her religious studies.
“A lot of the tales run parallel to how we view religious experience. You look upon movie theaters like plays. You have the list of players, the actors, the producers, the screenwriters, etc.,” she said.
“The film in a way is a pulpit. The audience is the congregation. How you interpret it, how you see that movie, if you are looking that deeply, impacting you and how you want people to hear the same message — that, in essence, is almost like a religious experience.”
