Fall 2023: Theology and the ArtsColleagues from across the University of Toronto and beyond reflect on the relationships among art, justice, theology, and the sacred.
This course will be delivered in a hybrid format (in-person at Regis College and online via Zoom). Online participants will receive a Zoom conferencing link before the course begins.
September 20 – Timothy Schmalz, Reflections on “Let the Oppressed Go Free”
Timothy Schmalz is a Canadian sculptor based out of St. Jacobs, Ontario, Canada. He focuses on religious figures and has other public sculptures, including Angels Unawares recently installed in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. He is best known for his Homeless Jesus, first installed at Regis College.
September 27 – Walter Deller, A Splendid Fragment: J.S. Bach’s opening Chorus for BWV 50, Cantata for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels.
Walter Deller is Assistant Professor and Director of Field Education in the Trinity College Faculty of Divinity. He spent many years as a church musician.
October 4 – Michael Stoeber, The Role of Visual Art in Therapy, Prayer, and Response to Suffering.
Michael Stoeber is a Professor of Spirituality at Regis St Michael’s Faculty of Theology. Michael develops these themes of spirituality and art with reference to his course “Prayer and Meditation through Pencil, Pastel, and Ink Sketching”.
October 11 – Lesley Higgins, But Where Does Hopkins Take Us?
Lesley Higgins is Professor of English at York University. She has edited the essays, diaries, and “Dublin Notebook” of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Victorian poet and Jesuit. She studies the personal, aesthetic, cultural, and theological “conditions” that inform Hopkins’s writings.
October 18 – Gilles Mongeau, S.J., Recovering the Body as Sacrament: Aquinas at the Roots of Modern Dance
Gilles Mongeau SJ is Socius (Assistant Provincial) of the Jesuits of Canada and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology. Gilles explores the theology and spirituality of the beautiful in modern art and architecture.
October 25 – James Bird, Language and Shape in the Dene Language (tentative)
James K. Bird is pursuing doctoral studies in architecture at the University of Toronto and is a member of the Dënesųłiné Nation. James has received the Prideaux Award for Science and Architecture, the University College Merit Award, the Gordon Cressy Award, the Dr. Lillian McGregor Indigenous Award for Excellence, the President’s Award, and the Irving Gross Prize for thesis work and has been made a Clarkson Laureate.
November 1 – Katharine Lochnan, The Sublime, The Beautiful and the Industrial Revolution: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Pollution
Katharine Lochnan, Ph.D., M.T.S. is a Sessional Lecturer at Regis College and Senior Curator Emeritus, Art Gallery of Ontario. Katharine explores historical intersections between theology, spirituality, and the arts.
November 8 – John Dadosky, Bringing Beauty Back into Art
John Dadosky is Professor of Theology and Philosophy at the Regis St. Michael’s Faculty of Theology.
November 15 – Gordon Rixon, S.J., Agency, Providence, and Beauty: Makoto Fujimura’s Nihonga Slow Art
Gordon Rixon, S.J. is President of Regis College and Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the Regis St. Michael’s Faculty of Theology. His work cultivates spiritual agency and its contribution to journeys in social reconciliation through art appreciation and theological reflection.
Register online by clicking the button below. A credit card is required. Please read the conditions of enrolment before registering.
Register Online for Fall 2023 Windows on TheologyRegister by mail by downloading the registration form and completing by hand. Enclose cheque payable to “Regis College” and mail to Regis College, 100 Wellesley Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2Z5.
Download Registration Form
Fall and Winter 2023-2024: The Psalms: Prayer Moving from Trust to Lament to Gratitude and to Praise, presented by Michael Kolarcik, SJ
The Psalms have long been a major source of prayer for the Jewish and Christian communities alike. Why do they remain so contemporary and relevant? What makes them so moving and at times unnerving as well? This 8-week online course delves into the mysteries, the challenges, and the beauty of the Psalms as a source for prayer and theological reflection.
This course will be delivered online only. Participants will receive a Zoom conferencing link before the course begins.
Register online by clicking the button below. A credit card is required. Please read the conditions of enrolment before registering.
Register Online for Windows on Theology: The Psalms
Register by mail by downloading the registration form and completing by hand. Enclose cheque payable to “Regis College” and mail to Regis College, 100 Wellesley Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2Z5.
Download Registration Form
Winter 2024: Beyond Polarities: Ignatian and Jesuit Sources for a Wounded World, presented by Susan Wood, SCL
Today’s Christians are called to walk with a wounded world whose culture has become increasingly uncivil and polarized. Resources drawn from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, as well as from the Society of Jesus’s reflection on its mission oriented to justice and reconciliation in service of the faith, offer both a path to personal conversion and tools for accompanying our fellow travelers and offering Christ’s healing.
This course will be delivered in a hybrid format (in-person at Regis College and online via Zoom). Online participants will receive a Zoom conferencing link before the course begins.
Register online by clicking the button below. A credit card is required. Please read the conditions of enrolment before registering.
Register Online for Winter 2024 Windows on Theology
Register by mail by downloading the registration form and completing by hand. Enclose cheque payable to “Regis College” and mail to Regis College, 100 Wellesley Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2Z5.
Download Registration Form
Regis College is located at 100 Wellesley Street West, Toronto, near the corner of Queen’s Park Crescent East. Regis College is on the 94 Wellesley TTC bus route and a short walk (south) from the Museum subway station. Public parking is available in the University of St. Michael’s College parking lot on St. Joseph Street, one block north of Regis College. The venue is accessible.
For more information about the Windows on Theology Continuous Learning Series, please contact regis.communications@utoronto.ca or call 416-922-5474 x231.
Before registering, please read the conditions of enrolment.
For assistance in registering, please contact regis.communications@utoronto.ca or call 416-922-5474 x 231.
From the moment that Pope Francis announced his name after the papal election, it was clear that the reform of the church would be central to his papal agenda. The Lord had told Francis of Assisi, “Repair my Church,” and Francis would attempt to do just that. The floorplan for Francis for this repair would be a missionary church in which all are called to be “missionary disciples.” This course will examine how Pope Francis is accomplishing his goal.
Professor Gordon Rixon, SJ, President-Designate of Regis College, identifies the resources of Ignatian mystical spirituality and contemporary narrative theory to shape liberating religious stories that contribute to social transformation in a post-secular context. The course engages contemporary social theory to address issues of racism and other forms of systematic injustice and introduces transdisciplinary approach to ecological, social, cultural, and ecclesial reconciliation.
Humanity currently faces an ecological crisis of unprecedented magnitude. As Pope Francis notes, this crisis is a manifestation of a deeper crisis of modernity that includes “ethical, cultural, and spiritual” dimensions. We are all called to heal relationships between ourselves and the wider Earth community. We need not only transformed technologies, policies, and economics to do so, but also a practical and ethical know-how. Ecological wisdom capable of discerning a path towards just and loving relationships is paramount.
Although the Old Testament is a collection of written works spanning many centuries, there is a common thread uniting all its books. It is a continual account of God’s call, the imperfect response of human beings, and God’s overwhelming compassion and mercy. There is a constant tension between the call to love and serve God and others, and the all too human tendency towards selfishness. Throughout the many instances of human failure, God is faithful. The spiritual journey of the Old Testament imparts wisdom that is both human and divine. We will journey through the Old Testament with the accompaniment of the rabbis and the Church Fathers.
This journey examines the story of the Christian faith in the place where it all began. Many scholars consider the land of Israel the fifth Gospel. Immersing yourself in this land will bring you closer to the history, archeology, anthropology, culture, people and politics that spans over thousands of years. Israel is the Holy Land; a country where you will see the Bible come to life in ways that will touch your life today. Expect a Blessing!
Storied rationality, metaphors and symbols, the knowing of the sensing body, the passions, the senses, movement as rationality, approaches to the paschal mystery… all coming together as practical reason moving us out of suffering into flourishing, now and forever. This 6-week course explored an uncommon meaning of rationality, namely, the logic of movement toward the good in terms of one’s sensed bodily vitality.
Euthanasia. Physician-Assisted Death. Withdrawing Treatment. With the rise of medical technology and the recent legalization of medically assisted death in Canada, the “ethics” of dying can seem daunting. This course examined ethical issues in end-of-life care and draw on relevant Catholic Church Teaching
for guidance.
This course surveyed some important authors on the topic of love: St. Paul, C.S. Lewis, Rosemary Haughton, Erich Fromm, Rollo May, Robert Johnson, Scott Peck, Bernard Lonergan and Buddhist perspectives.
This course invited students into the way of doing theology practiced by the Fathers of the Church, so that our contexts and situations may be lit by the same fire which animated their own. The Fathers, almost without exception, were pastors. Their theology, therefore, is fundamentally one of encounter and relationship. Looking to the Fathers helps us to discover what it means for us to be bearers of the Tradition today, so that we can more adequately and humbly appropriate the task of mercy to which we have all been called.
St. Paul spent much of his life travelling over land and sea, spreading the Good News. The ‘In the Footsteps of Paul’ study tour will follow Paul’s steps beginning at the crossroads of three continents on the Mediterranean Island of Cyprus, then travelling on to the mythical Islands of Malta and continuing on to “Roma Aeterna” the eternal city of Rome and beyond.
In Cyprus we will step back in time with visits to prehistoric settlements, Roman mosaics and villas, Tombs of the Kings, Churches, UNESCO sites and glorious beaches. We will travel along the coast to Paphos as Saul did before he became Paul.
In Malta, we will stroll on meandering narrow streets, visit medieval towers, and the oldest known human structures in the world. We will visit St. Paul’s Island where in 60 C.E. Paul was shipwrecked on his way to Rome. The welcome he received is described in Acts 28: ‘After we had reached safety, we then learned that the island was called Malta. The natives showed us unusual kindness. Since it had begun to rain and was cold, they kindled a fire and welcomed all of us round it.’
Italy will be the final country on the tour as we follow Paul to Rome where he died after years of imprisonment. Highlights are ancient ruins that evoke the power of the former Roman Empire including Vatican City, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, and much more in Rome.
‘Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things’ Phil. 4:8
