250 PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS scandal and the pain of division, which they feel would be unbearable without this solution. They indicate that they cannot imagine being a community without sharing the Eucharist. They experience the sacrament as a way to treat and comfort the wounds. This helps them to carry on and to endure those occasions in which sharing is impossible. At the same time, they realize that the wounds have not yet healed completely and that the pain remains. The sense of communion nourished by sharing the Eucharist reinforces their desire for full visible unity. It inspires and challenges the monastics to strive for the realization of full visible unity. These experiences of pain, comfort, and desire for the realization of full communion act as joint stimuli for continuous ecumenical commitment. In their cases, Eucharistic sharing thus reinforces their ecumenical zeal instead of reducing it. Discussion Given the aforementioned observations, one important argument against Eucharistic sharing is invalidated, at least in these particular contexts: Eucharistic sharing does not necessarily imply a decrease in ecumenical commitment, as if the final goal had been reached. Rather, sharing the Eucharist nourishes the monastics’ initial desire to share their entire lives with other Christians, even of other traditions. Moreover, it reaffirms the ultimate motivation underpinning this desire: the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In addition, it acts as an oil or salve to make the wounds of division bearable. It is very clear to the monastics that these wounds are not yet healed completely, but sharing the Eucharist eases the pain that could otherwise be crippling, especially in the intimate context of a monastic community. This particular experience should be taken into account when reviewing the discussion on Eucharistic sharing. In these specific circumstances, administering Communion to non-Catholics has not caused a standstill in ecumenical commitment, but rather helps to nourish the ecumenical energy of the communities. On the one hand, based on this research, a similar effect cannot evidently be expected in other contexts. On the other hand, bearing the concept of “potentially transformative resonance”536 (mentioned in sections 2.3 and 2.5) in mind, there is reason to hope for a similar dynamic in contexts that resemble the circumstances in Taizé and Bose. Bearing the experiences expressed in this study in mind, it is possible to list some criteria, for example that these contexts should be able to embrace the ambivalent character of the 536 Swinton and Mowat, Practical Theology and Qualitative Research, 47 (italics in original).
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