Communio Circle of the Diocese of Hamilton

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, September 8th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “The Church as Temple of the Spirit: Is There Room for Magesterial Error?” by Matthew Levering from the Spring 2023 issue entitled The Spirit of Unity (Volume 50.1). The article can be downloaded from here.

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:

“Since the Holy Spirit is not a spirit of contradiction, the Church does not fall into false doctrine.” Matthew Levering, in “The Church as Temple of the Spirit: Is There Room for Magisterial Error?,” draws on a host of theological authorities to affirm that the visible Church is formed by the Holy Spirit so that she can authentically transmit the fullness of Christ in her doctrine. On this foundation, Levering posits that the confession of the Holy Spirit as a divine person compels us to believe that even as a pope can err in some teachings he could not “reverse (whether intentionally or by mistake) an infallibly taught dogma of the ordinary universal Magisterium.” Levering concludes that such a doctrinal account of doctrine must inform the theologian’s patience, circumspection, and hope in the act of voicing dissent.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, August 11th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “From Extrinsicism to a World That Denies Both Nature and Grace: A Polyphonic Analysis of Secularism” by Tracey Rowland from the Winter 2022 issue entitled The Unity and Mission of the Church: Communio at 50 Years (Volume 49.4). The article can be downloaded from here.

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
Taking up the problem of secularism in “From Extrinsicism to a World That Denies Both Nature and Grace: A Polyphonic Analysis of Secularism,” Tracey Rowland highlights the work of some among the paramount Italian, French, German, and American figures who have helped in recent decades to shape Communio’s approach toward reconciling domains of reality and of human life that modern culture characteristically sets in opposition, such as metaphysics and politics or religion and culture. “[A]uthentic Christianity,” Rowland reminds us, “unites what other religious traditions seek to separate.”

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, July 14th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “An Apologetics of the Flesh: The Body as the Path to God” by José Granados from the Fall 2022 issue entitled The Fresh (Volume 49.3).

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
In “An Apologetics of the Flesh: The Body as the Path to God,” José Granados dwells on bodily experience as both necessary for and ordered to life with God. “At the creation of the world, God speaks a word that, out of nothing, inaugurates the corporeal space men will inhabit, where they will be able to respond to him and enter into a covenant with him.” The senses, Granados observes, make us aware of our finitude, but they do so by always bringing us into contact with things whose actuality surpasses us. In different ways, each of the senses reminds us thereby that we belong with others from the beginning, and leads us from within concrete relationships to the divine origin who holds together the communion of all that is, and who, both by becoming incarnate and by incorporating us into himself, bestows on us the whole of his presence in the flesh.

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.

The online option is on hold. It may resume when the winter weather makes it more challenging to travel to Waterloo. Thank you for your anticipated understanding.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, June 9th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “Riveted with Faith Unto Your Flesh”: Technology’s Flight from Actuality and the Word Made Flesh” by Michael Dominic Taylor from the Fall 2022 issue entitled The Flesh (Volume 49.3). The article can be downloaded from here.
Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
In “‘Riveted with Faith Unto Your Flesh’: Technology’s Flight from Actuality and the Word Made Flesh,” Michael Dominic Taylor confronts technology’s spurious promise of salvation from the flesh, drawing upon a wealth of witnesses who articulate the primacy of gift that modernity violently forgets. Interrogating the counter-ontology of post- and transhumanism, Taylor exposes the diabolical figure of these aspirations, which vainly pervert the better hope actually given to man in Christ. “To be ‘trans-humaned’ is the goal of every human life, but it is unattainable through our own ingenuity.”

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, May 12th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing The Family as an Image of the Trinity in Aquinas by Michael Joseph Higgins from the Summer 2022 issue entitled Marriage and Family (Volume 49.2).

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, April 14th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing two articles from Marriage and Family (49.2):
Carlo Caffarra: Teacher and Witness of Love’s Truth by Livio Melina (full article)
Nexus indissolubilis: A Balthasarian-Augustinian Meditation on the Spousal Embrace by Adrian J. Walker (pages 267-283 only)

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, March 10th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing two articles from The Flesh (49.2), one by and one about Sigrid Undset:
“If 2 + 2 = 5” by Sigrid Undset
“Sigrid Undset: Holiness and Culture” by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis Simeon Leiva-Merikakis