CHAPTER 7: LIVING IN COMMUNION 209 But there also I experienced, to come back to the topic of ecumenism, the dimension of this… non-denominational {laughs}, or I don’t know how to say, post-confessional dimension of the church, so sharing without ask~… so asking everybody to which church he’s belonging, uh, this, yes, anyway, this ecumenical possibility of sharing uh… the faith, uh… … in a bigger context than the one of the confessional church to which one belongs.473 This reflects the anticipatory-sign-function of the communities described in section 6.4: the communities as places where one can experience the reconciled church in full communion. For BE, it also meant a shift in understanding the relation between the notions of church and denomination. He finds it difficult to express it adequately but tries to articulate what this experience meant for his understanding of the church: I was not aware of being Reformed, probably, before, so it was part of the natural context in which I was living, while here, having to i~… ask question to myself, about what I was experiencing, of course being in the midst of other, non-Reformed, it made come out the small differences, but I would say really secondary points, uh… and it made me also understand perhaps, uh, this idea of putting upside down our tradition, or natural way to understand our belonging to the church. So, we are not Reformed and because we are Reformed we are part of a wider church, but we are first of all Christian, all baptized, and so we are all Christians, and we lived our own Christian tradition, so our Christian life in a specific context, cultural, confessional, and so on, and this made us. And so… living here with Catholics made me understand what we share all, that the first identity is our Christian common uh, identity, more than uh… … ah, it’s difficult to say, all these things in English, but I hope it’s more or less understandable.474 Later on in the interview, Brother BE explained how he and his ecumenical youth group did not hesitate to share the Eucharist, even if they knew the official rules. It had everything to do with the reevaluation mentioned above: BE: I think we knew it quite well and quite quick, and at the same time, we practiced it in a very… in a very free way uh, without asking all the permissions of all the authorities…. So, I can’t remember to have had problems with uh… have had experienced sort of… to have be injured 473 BE-1,14a. 474 BE-1,34.
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