Following God's Plan: Aspiring Actress Finds Her Joy in Teaching Theology to Gen Z

Sara Hulse Kirby ’09 seemed to be on the cusp of a successful acting career. The aspiring actress and DeSales University communication major was wrapping up dual internships in New York City: one with CBS’s casting department, and another with a talent management company.

She was given the opportunity to audition for the former, and to be represented by the latter. But Hulse Kirby turned down both offers, surprising many who knew her passion for the performing arts.

“My whole life I thought I was going to be an actress,” she says. Yet, something deeper was pulling her in a different direction. She just wasn’t sure what it was.

Hulse Kirby’s interest in theology had started during her junior year at DeSales, after fulfilling her required theology coursework. It was more than just a class; it was a transformative moment.

“Everything really clicked for me,” she says. “I absolutely loved studying theology.”

As she commuted between campus and New York City, she began reading books about religion. She also found herself spending more time hanging around the theology department at DeSales, posing questions to professors. One of her instructors, Larry Chapp, Ph.D., recognized her talent, and posed a question to her: Would she ever consider teaching?

But Hulse Kirby didn’t feel that was her vocation—at least, not yet. After graduating from DeSales, she embarked on another unexpected journey: she entered the Sisters of Life convent in the Bronx, New York.

While she enjoyed the community and fellowship there, she again couldn’t ignore that nagging feeling that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. She prayed a novena, asking God to work through her superior, Sister Charlotte, to help her decide whether she should stay at the convent.

On day nine of the novena, Sister Charlotte asked to speak with Hulse Kirby in private, and encouraged her to go out into the world and explore her options before committing to the convent. “My prayer was answered in exactly the way I prayed that it would be,” Hulse Kirby says.

In 2013, another door opened when she learned that Chapp would be retiring from DeSales. By then, Hulse Kirby had earned her master’s degree in theology from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. She accepted a temporary teaching position that quickly became a full-time role.

“I just loved being with the students, and I loved teaching theology,” she says.

Today, Hulse Kirby is an assistant professor of theology and the department chair for theology and philosophy. Her office is Chapp’s former office. It’s not lost on her that she sits on the opposite side of the same desk where she sat as an undergrad at the beginning of her journey of self-discovery.

Now, after years of uncertainty, Hulse Kirby says she is fully confident she is exactly where she is meant to be. “In hindsight, God was guiding me toward what he actually had in mind for me,” she says.  

Hulse Kirby admits that teaching theology to Gen Z can be challenging. There are skeptics who sign up for her class simply to fulfill a graduation requirement. But she leans on the teachings of Saint John Paul II, who said the Church proposes, but never imposes.

Hulse Kirby is also an admirer of the French priest and theologian Henri de Lubac, who believed the deepest desire of the human heart is to form a relationship with God. That’s something that resonated with her as she came into her faith at DeSales. “I just felt this enormous joy and happiness that I wanted to share with others,” she says.

And, like de Lubac, Hulse Kirby believes connecting with theology requires much more than perusing ancient texts and ideas. “I tell my students, theology isn’t just a matter of the head. You have to allow it to travel down and transfer to the heart.”