CHAPTER 8: POSITIONING OF THE EUCHARIST 241 celebrations. Both processes have been nurtured by participating together in the Eucharist and through finding a frequency and liturgical form suitable for their ecumenical context. In Taizé, this has resulted in a discrete Eucharistic practice on weekdays and a public Mass on Sundays. In Bose, the celebration of the Eucharist was reduced to Sundays and Thursdays. Both practices, the monastics indicate, help them to experience the embeddedness of the Eucharist in the weekly liturgical rhythm. They appreciate this rhythm and feel that it accommodates the sensibilities of their respective denominational backgrounds. At the same time, they urge the ecumenical dialogue not to focus too much on the Eucharist as an isolated topic. Without denying the centrality of the Eucharist, they feel that other aspects of the Christian life should be discussed and lived together just as much. The overall impression I get from the interviews and the experience of participating in the life of the communities is that the Eucharist plays a central and crucial role without being the focus of attention most of the time. Explicit ecumenical attention goes to the practice of hospitality, charity, and theological study, with the Eucharist itself being the source of peace and inspiration in the background. The monastics could clearly not do without the Eucharist. Nevertheless, it does not act as an ecumenical spearhead. Secondly, the monastics position the Eucharist vis-à-vis the denominations they encounter. The fundamental point of departure is that there can only be one Eucharist. They experience and acknowledge the Eucharist to be a radically super-denominational category. Unable to define the sacrament denominationally, the monastics experience the Eucharist beyond the borders of the Roman Catholic Church in which they usually celebrate it. This experience urges a reevaluation of theological language and logic, which runs the risk of limiting Eucharist to one denominational definition, excluding valid expressions of Eucharist in other traditions. This implies a recognition of ministry in other traditions as well. The monastics display a far-reaching recognition of ministry in other denominations. On the one hand, this seems to resolve a tension within Roman Catholic theology, which hesitates to extend recognition of ministry beyond the borders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox and Oriental Churches. On the other hand, the lack of a clear and univocal definition makes it hard for the monastics to designate what can still be understood as Eucharist and what cannot, as we have seen already in section 4.3. Again, the communities choose to live with this uncertainty rather than dismiss authentic expressions of Eucharist while defining the sacrament too strictly.
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