CHAPTER 3: EUCHARIST IN ECUMENICAL MONASTERIES 113 and to offer them a sign of hospitality. Therefore, it is not an alternative equal to Communion, as is also indicated on the sign at the entrances. During an earlier visit to Taizé, I noticed yet another custom which has now been abandoned by the community. Previously, simultaneous to early morning Mass, a Protestant Eucharistic liturgy was celebrated in the Orthodox chapel or elsewhere (as Brother TB told me). However, the community increasingly considered this solution to be inadequate as it caused confusion amongst the guests. I, too, was somewhat confused the first times I visited Taizé. In the course of my research, I understood more clearly what happened. Still, it was a painful reminder of Christian division to run into people (quite literary so) finding my way through the church in order to reach the ‘correct’ Communion row. On the one hand, this experience vividly and painfully represents the drama of Christian division. From that point of view, it can create awareness and revitalize the desire for unity. This, of course, is a major argument against Eucharistic sharing. On the other hand, however, the experience contradicts the very essence of the Eucharist, as the interviewed monastics have also pointed out. I will dwell on this theme when discussing the interviews, especially in section 8.2. For now, suffice it to say that the brothers desired to eliminate the confusion and to express that the Eucharist is a sacrament of unity, leading them to abandon their former practice of administering bread and wine from separate Catholic and Protestant celebrations during the morning prayer. Instead, they agreed to prioritize the ministry of Catholic clergy for the sake of unity and for the benefit of the guests. I struggle to find language here, since I am convinced that this is both pragmatic and deeply spiritual. ‘Prioritizing’ here does not mean evaluating the ministry of the Catholic Church as more valuable, real, authentic, or valid; rather, it simply means resorting to a solution for a deeply spiritual problem that fits the complex situation best and that tries to balance the interests and convictions of all involved (which also implies taking into account as well as possible the requirements and limitations of the respective ecclesial laws and regulations) and, ultimately, in faithful obedience to God. The way the monastics address this issue is conceptually rich and theologically complex. It is discussed in several sections in the empirical chapters and analyzed as part of the conclusions in section 9.3. Eucharist on Sundays Each week in Taizé culminates in the Sunday morning Eucharist. Of course, this idea is embedded in the understanding of Sunday as the Day of the Lord in
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