CHAPTER 7: LIVING IN COMMUNION 219 a wider community, a wider communion, uh, and uh, trying to… to make as if the limits between the churches were not existing anymore, or where it would be able to go over these, these fences… ….488 The desire to be in communion with the Catholic Church without abandoning the Reformed Church of his origins is deeply embedded in Brother BE’s biography. The narrative and BE’s own interpretation of the link with his life in Bose shed light on both the practice of Eucharistic hospitality in Bose and the spontaneous act of a young man during the European Meetings two decades ago. The regular practice of sharing the Eucharist in Bose has enabled him to articulate the meaning of his desire to receive Communion back then, while the experience of his youth illuminates the significance of the practice of the whole community today. BE does not perceive of his own act as an adolescent as provocative: he insists no one knew that he was Protestant and was not supposed to receive Communion. To him, however, it meant quite a lot. It enabled him to substantiate in the most significant way his desire to overcome Christian division and to be united with both traditions he had grown to appreciate. This episode, more than any other in the interviews, has shown me as a researcher the significance of sharing the Eucharist in ecumenical contexts. The struggle to maintain the original belonging However, Brother BE struggles to materialize both fidelities at once. In his youth, he hardly ever visited a Roman Catholic Church, even when he felt attracted to it. He says: I almost never went to the Catholic Church, in my city, in, in my region, uh, not because I didn’t want, but I, I understood that my, my church life had to be, uh, founded in the church I was taking~ I was belonging to.489 Yet, today, he struggles to maintain contacts with the Reformed Church. When he joined Bose, the leadership of his parish and ecclesial region sent him letters to assure him that they would not forget him, saying that “you are still part of our reality.”490 BE elaborates on his relationship to the Reformed Church in 488 BE-2,30-36. 489 BE-1,68. 490 BE-2,12.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw