CHAPTER 5: DYNAMICS OF COMMON LIFE AND COMMON EUCHARIST 153 5 DYNAMICS OF COMMON LIFE AND COMMON EUCHARIST key theme in the interviews in light of the research question of this study is the relationship between the common life and sharing the Eucharist. In the debate about the topic, one can often find two positions: the Eucharist as the completion and culmination of the ecumenical way, or the Eucharist as source for ecumenical rapprochement. The interviewees mention both aspects. When examining how they function in their respective communities, an instance of circular reasoning seems to surface. It demonstrates how both characteristics of the Eucharist are interdependent in the life of Taizé and Bose. Therefore, it is quite impossible to distinguish which one serves as a precondition to the other. Rather, their relationship can be qualified as mutually dependent and dynamic. The experiences articulated in this chapter provide a deeper understanding of this dynamic and how it functions in the life of the ecumenical communities. Section 5.1 introduces the experience of the Eucharist as a logical and necessary consequence of the Christian common life. The strongest witness to this logic, however, is the counter-narrative of a common life that is abruptly interrupted – and even contradicted - by the experience of separation at the table of the Lord. This counter-experience is, at the same time, the moment in which the Eucharist manifests itself as the basis for the common life, making the transition to section 5.2 rather fluid and natural. In that section, the monastics express the heart-felt conviction that the Eucharist, and the Easter mystery that it represents, is the very reason to live the monastic common life in the first place. The relation between common life and Eucharist, then, appears to be a chicken-and-egg dilemma: it seems impossible to establish which one came first or should have priority. Yet, somehow, the communities as a whole and A
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