CHAPTER 6: TEMPORARY SOLUTION FOR A PERMANENT PROBLEM 189 to Eucharistic hospitality provided by the Roman Catholic Church, when a Catholic priest joined them. As a consequence, the Waldensian liturgy was no longer celebrated. Here, too, there has been willingness to ‘yield,’ to use the expression of Brother TB. TC contemplates the struggle of Brother Roger, who always came across like he walked the ecumenical path effortlessly: Godfried Hamann says something, I don't think he says that in the film, but he told me, during the interview something, uh... something that makes you kind of think anyway, and I think it's true, it's true to a large degree, uh... Brother Roger, he said, live this way... ... this reconciliation... ... but the way he did it... you were misled, to think it was easy... Uh? Because he did it with such joy, uh? And such simplicity, you thought, oh, it's easy for him... no? Whereas maybe there were more struggles than we think, uh? {laughs} [-] So I think he used the word ludique, ludique, it comes, it means... ludis, no? game, it's almost like it's pleasant to do, it's fun... it's fun to do it... and uh... and uh... whereas maybe some, or like Bonhoeffer or so, would have talked about, costly grace, no, something that costs you... and reconciliation does cost something, no? Reconciliation has a cost, in a way, no? Uh... and I think Brother Roger knew that, but it didn't come across in that way. It came across as, oh, it's easy to do, to recognize the ministry of the pope, or to, or to pray this prayer or [-] but it's good, but, and. Whereas maybe there was something inside, that... that had happened that was also the result of a great struggle.... the determination... to, to, no matter what the cost, we go to reconciliation... ....439 The monastics are careful to locate this cost in the framework of a theology of abundance instead of competition. Only then can an exchange of gifts be fruitful. Nevertheless, it remains necessary to contemplate the notions of power that come into play. Certainly, the pragmatic solutions found in Bose and Taizé are partly the consequence of the position of power in which the Roman Catholic Church finds itself in ecumenical relations. Brother BE concludes, rather pragmatically: I know that the rules of the churches to which, of course, as Christians we try to be faithful, uh, tell me… that it’s not, it’s not possible for nonCatholics~ for Catholics to take part in the Protestant celebration, so, in this sense~ in this way it would make no sense to ask a Protestant pastor to celebrate, and all the others, not to take part, or to take part 439 TC-1,18b.
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