CHAPTER 4: MONASTIC VOCATION WITH ECUMENICAL IMPLICATIONS 123 4 MONASTIC VOCATION WITH ECUMENICAL IMPLICATIONS peaking about their personal path towards joining either Taizé or Bose, it is surprising that all of the interviewees indicate that the ecumenical nature and mission of the communities did not define their primary motivation for joining them. Their level of familiarity with ecumenical affairs before encountering the communities differs, but for all of them the choice for the monastic life implies a new or renewed commitment to Christian unity. This surprised me since I had assumed that the choice to join either Bose or Taizé would be especially based on their ecumenical nature. The question of Eucharistic sharing, therefore, needs to be interpreted as part of the personal process towards (a growing) devotion to Christian unity, rather than as a fruit or consequence of such a process. The first two sections give insight into these processes. In section 4.3, I have collected the interviewees’ responses to liturgical, and especially Eucharistic, traditions that the monastics encounter within and outside their respective communities. It becomes clear that they all feel familiar with, or attracted to, Eucharistic liturgies shaped by the liturgical movement. This is a common ground for their understanding and recognition of Eucharistic celebrations in various traditions. Recognition in the sense of acknowledgment is, to a significant extent, based on the identification of such liturgies with the principles of the liturgical movement rather than on the denominational identity of the presiding minister. This, in turn, implies that, for the monastics, ‘Eucharist’ is not reserved to one or two particular ecclesial traditions. In fact, they struggle to identify the boundaries to ‘Eucharist’: they cannot clearly indicate which liturgies could not be identified as such. This indicates that, for them, Eucharist is not a clearly defined category. This S
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