Communio Circle of the Diocese of Hamilton

We have a new time!

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, March 8th from 4:00pm to 5:30pm. We will be discussing “On Art in Our Churches” by Martin Mosebach and “Creativity and Tradition: A Framework for Sacred Music” by Mary Catherine Levri, both from the Summer 2023 issue entitled Memory (Volume 50.2).

Here are excerpts from the Introduction to the issue:
Martin Mosebach, in “On Art in Our Churches,” observes that the Hebrew prohibition against images of God is upheld in Christianity because God himself has supplied his own definitive image in Jesus Christ. This confession stands behind the careful regulation of icons, which stands in marked contrast to the approach of secular religious art that emerged in the Renaissance. Unlike the masterpiece of a modern genius, “nderneath some Greek icons, instead of a signature, there are the words, ‘created by an unworthy hand.’ This could also be engraved on the base of a Lourdes statue.” Mosebach signals that a faithful return to the humble form of images that have always served the Church’s worship can still guide the religious artist in our day.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, February 9th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “On Reason and Hope: Plato, Pieper, and the Hopeful Structure of Reason” by Ryan M. Brown from the Summer 2023 issue entitled Memory (Volume 50.2).

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
“We can hope that all will be well because that is how reality itself is made.” Ryan M. Brown attends to Socratic recollection (anamnesis) as free of both sophistic presumption and misological despair in “On Reason and Hope: Plato, Pieper, and the Hopeful Structure of Reason.” Rooting his approach in the thought of Josef Pieper, Brown proceeds to interpret key passages from the Platonic dialogues to show how Socrates exemplifies the loving desire to rest in the whole of truth in an openness that confidently awaits this gift from above, and how he thereby remains a model for the Catholic philosopher.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, January 12th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “Covenant Love: A Symbolic Reading of the Song of Songs” by Nina Sophie Heereman from the Spring 2023 issue entitled The Spirit of Unity (Volume 50.1).

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
In “Covenant Love: A Symbolic Reading of the Song of Songs,” Nina Sophie Heereman unfolds how the Song of Songs was composed over generations with Israel’s experience of redemption in view. Hence, with regard to this work “[w]e are not dealing with a theological projection onto a merely secular love poem, but with a single process that interweaves the human and the theological from the beginning.” Focusing especially on the “Wedding of Solomon” cycle at the center of the poem, Heereman shows how the Song’s celebration of human marriage is at once illuminated by and mediates in turn Israel’s contemplation of her spiritual and cultic bond with God from Mount Moriah to Mount Sinai to the Temple in Jerusalem.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, December 8th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “Delimiting Freedom: Aquinas between Brain Science and Choice Gone Wild” by Anselm Ramelow from the Spring 2023 issue entitled The Spirit of Unity (Volume 50.1.4). The article can be downloaded from here.

Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the issue:
Anselm Ramelow discusses the incoherence of a scientific denial of free will in “Delimiting Freedom: Aquinas between Brain Science and Choice Gone Wild.” Aquinas enables us to see that free choices are fundamentally immaterial because they are purposefully ordered to their universal good through particular means. At the same time, Aquinas grants both that the conditions of choice can be determined by material factors, and, even more significantly, that prior choices shape the context of our future action. Yet even this does not present a case against the reality of freedom: “[W]ith such a history our freedom increases, because much of the prehistory that influences our choices will be of our own making.”

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, November 10th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “Trusting the Church: A Lecture” by Ida Friederike Görres from LOGOS: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture – Volume 23, Number 4, Fall 2020. You are also asked to read for your own background information the following two pieces found in the same publication: ““Only the Lover Discerns”: A Brief Introduction to Ida Friederike Görres” by Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz and “Eulogy for Ida Friederike Görres” by Fr. Joseph Ratzinger. All three pieces can be downloaded from here.

You are invited to attend our next monthly meeting to be held on Friday, October 13th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “The Inexhaustible Reality: Joseph Ratzinger and the Sacred Liturgy” by Robert Sarah from the Winter 2023 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:

First, on the theme of worship in the context of the liturgy, Robert Sarah presents the development of Joseph Ratzinger’s understanding of liturgical reform in “The Inexhaustible Reality: Joseph Ratzinger and the Sacred Liturgy.” Out of a lifelong love for the liturgy as a gift entrusted to the Church’s care, Ratzinger recognized and increasingly articulated the centrality of the Eucharist for theology and the whole of Christian life. He accordingly sought to remain “grounded in the fundamental disposition necessary for any celebration of the sacred liturgy: we, God’s creatures, come before him in all humility and reverence to worship him as worthily as we are able.” This perspective guided Ratzinger to avoid the two extremes of archaism and progressivism, so that he embraced the revival of the liturgy, without rejecting the older rite, as at the service of deeper fidelity to the tradition and the mystery it safeguards.

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.”