Communio Circle of the Diocese of Hamilton

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, June 13th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm.

We will be discussing “The Presence of Mystery: Structures of Paradox in Hans Urs von Balthasar” by Roberto Carelli from the Summer 2024 issue entitled “Paradoxes of Faith” (Volume 51.2).

Here are excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
In “The Presence of Mystery: Structures of Paradox in Hans Urs von Balthasar,” Roberto Carelli argues that the cornerstones of Balthasar’s thought are marked by paradox. Balthasar sees paradox not as a limit to or end of thought but “as the sign of mystery and the reawakening of thought.” He uses paradox as a theoretical apparatus by which he “avoids committing both of the contrary errors of modern thought: neither substituting theology with anthropology nor, reactively, erasing anthropology from the theological sphere.” The mystery of paradox, Carelli argues, finds an “original synthesis” in Balthasar: “He affirms paradox as the characteristic, synthetic figure of an intellectual project centered on the presence of mystery, that is, on the hyper-tension between the fullness of God and the incompleteness of man.” Carelli walks us through the structures of paradox in Balthasar’s thought, exploring how his use of paradoxes evidences the influence of his teachers and contemporaries—Erich Przywara, Gustav Siewerth, Ferdinand Ulrich, Henri de Lubac, and Romano Guardini.

We will meet in the Kateri Room located at St. Michael’s Church, 240 Hemlock Street, Waterloo, Ontario. Use the east side parking lot and enter by the rear doors. Walk up the stairs. The Kateri Room is on your right before you enter the church proper.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, May 9th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. We will be discussing “A Conversation on the Council of Nicaea” by Khaled Anatolios from the Winter 2024 issue entitled “The Council of Nicaea (1,700 Years Later)” (Volume 51.4). The article can be downloaded here.
Here are excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
In “A Conversation on the Council of Nicaea,” Kahled Anatolios speaks with a Communio editor on the significance of the council for our times. Fr. Anatolios reflects on topics such as the need to understand the historical development of the doctrine of the Trinity, the centrality of the Trinity for Christian life, as well as contemporary scholarly debates about the doctrine and its history. What does it mean to say the Church is undergoing a trinitarian revival? Is it possible to say anything new about the Trinity? According to Anatolios, “A genuine revival of trinitarian theology must . . . take the form of an articulation of trinitarian modes of experiencing and understanding and enacting the entirety of Christian faith.”

We will meet in the Kateri Room located at St. Michael’s Church, 240 Hemlock Street, Waterloo, Ontario. Use the east side parking lot and enter by the rear doors. Walk up the stairs. The Kateri Room is on your right before you enter the church proper.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, March 14th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. We will be discussing “A Blood Transfusion for Theology: Pope Francis’s c’est la confiance, Thérèse, and Teresa” by Lisa Lickona from the Spring 2024 issue entitled “Reforming the Church” (Volume 51.1).

Here are excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
In “A Blood Transfusion for Theology: Pope Francis’s c’est la confiance, Thérèse, and Teresa,” Lisa Lickona responds to Pope Francis’s call for theologians to appropriate and draw out the conclusions of St. Thérèse’s theology. Lickona shows that Thérèse’s spirituality flows from that of another great Carmelite: St. Teresa of Ávila. Although both are Carmelites, the strong connection between their spiritualties is not obvious. Teresa’s mysticism, filled with remarkable visions and spiritual ecstasies, seems rather remote from Thérèse’s “little way.” Lickona, however, shows how Thérèse’s asceticism and emphasis on “confidence” flows from Teresa’s mystical charism; both women are united in their testimony to the “primacy of God” in their lives. “In the charisms of these two women, taken as a whole, the mystical informs the ascetical in a way that unleashes the Church’s true evangelical potential, which is joy, the joy of the Gospel.”

If you are interested, Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation C’est la confiance can be downloaded from here.

We will meet in the Kateri Room located at St. Michael’s Church, 240 Hemlock Street, Waterloo, Ontario. Use the east side parking lot and enter by the rear doors. Walk up the stairs. The Kateri Room is on your right before you enter the church proper.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, February 14th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. We will be discussing “First of All Receptive: Aquinas on the Place of Relation and Receiving in Created Being” by Michael Joseph Higgins from the Spring 2024 issue entitled “Reforming the Church” (Volume 51.1).

Here are excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
Michael Joseph Higgins takes a more philosophical approach to the theme of the family in “First of All Receptive: Aquinas on the Place of Relation and Receiving in Created Being.” Higgins considers the recent debate in Thomism regarding whether substance is unilaterally prior in the human person vis-à-vis God or whether our relation to God as our Creator is prior to our substance. This seemingly abstract philosophical debate has profound practical implications for the human person. Higgins argues that, in Aquinas’s mature view, “my act of receiving precedes my substance in every respect, and my relation precedes my substance in one respect and follows my substance in another respect.” This view is not blind to the paradox that my receiving somehow precedes my substance—which is to say that my receiving somehow precedes me. Higgins thus aligns himself with David L. Schindler and W. Norris Clark, contending that their view is not only closer to the spirit but also the letter of St. Thomas’s philosophy.

We will meet in the Kateri Room located at St. Michael’s Church, 240 Hemlock Street, Waterloo, Ontario. Use the east side parking lot and enter by the rear doors. Walk up the stairs. The Kateri Room is on your right before you enter the church proper.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, January 10th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. We will be discussing “The Inner Necessity of Paradox in Chesterton’s Humble Orthodoxy” by Thomas Möllenbeck from the Summer 2024 issue entitled “Paradoxes of Faith” (Volume 51.2). The article can be downloaded from here.

Here are excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
G. K. Chesterton’s distinctive writing style is highly enjoyable to many and highly irritating to some, but it is not merely a matter of style. In “The Inner Necessity of Paradox in Chesterton’s Humble Orthodoxy,” Thomas Möllenbeck shows how understanding the artistry of Chesterton’s writing involves “understanding the paradox of the artist.” It is true that Chesterton frequently uses paradox as a way of revealing the received opinion of his intellectual milieu as the vulgar error it is. But more than this, paradox permeated Chesterton’s own life. It was the self-contradictory accusations of the atheist against the Church that first opened for him the mystery of the faith. The comedic nature of his writing is revelatory of his theological and metaphysical convictions: his humor is not the opposite of sincerity; it is in fact a testament to his orthodoxy.

We will meet in the Kateri Room located at St. Michael’s Church, 240 Hemlock Street, Waterloo, Ontario. Use the east side parking lot and enter by the rear doors. Walk up the stairs. The Kateri Room is on your right before you enter the church proper.

Save-the-Date:
Thomas Toast – Tuesday, January 28th, 2025 – St. Anthony Daniel Church, Kitchener

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, November 8th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. We will be discussing “On Psalm 45” by Robert Spaemann from Fall 2023 issue entitled “Commemorating Fides et ratio” (Volume 50.3).

Here are excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
“No one can see the world through my eyes. If someone could, he would be identical with me. Jesus sees the world with the eyes of God.” The late German philosopher Robert Spaemann, in “On Psalm 45,” dwells on how creaturely life, in imitation of God’s own triune vitality, is ordered to festive communion, and above all to the wedding between heaven and earth that is consummated through the death of Christ, “the fairest of the sons of men” (Ps 45:2), on behalf of his bridal Church. This excerpt is taken from a two-part commentary composed by Spaemann in the last years of his life, in which the author’s philosophical acumen is joined to a sensitive biblical exegesis that is manifestly animated by prayer grounded in the liturgical life of the Church.

We will meet in the Kateri Room located at St. Michael’s Church, 240 Hemlock Street, Waterloo, Ontario. Use the east side parking lot and enter by the rear doors. Walk up the stairs. The Kateri Room is on your right before you enter the church proper.

December – “The Latent Resources in St. Augustine’s Thought” by Maurice Blondel (Fall 2023 – Volume 50.3)