252 PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS Discussion The communities cultivate trust: not only do they acknowledge trust to be a core theological value, but they choose to live the consequences of their leap of faith. This is especially true for their practice of Eucharistic sharing. The Catholics agree to entrust the most precious gift of their tradition – the Eucharist and in particular Holy Communion – to Christians not in full communion with them, and whose traditions may have rejected Roman Catholic teaching on the sacrament in the past. Non-Catholics, on the other hand, entrust themselves to the ministry of Roman Catholic clergy. Both groups place their trust in Christ, the presider, host of, and He who is present in the Eucharist. In the reality of their daily lives, this implies that the non-Catholic monastics rely on the Catholic Church for their main source of sacramental spirituality: they engage in the sacramental lives of other traditions significantly less. For some non-Catholics, furthermore, this has come with a significant sacrifice, for example, when they agreed not to preside over Eucharistic liturgies as they had been entitled to do in their own congregations. It is valuable to acknowledge that in Taizé and Bose, living the consequences of Christian trust is accompanied by uncertainty, sacrifice, provisionality, and doubt, just as much as by experiences of enrichment, fulfilment, and enhanced relationships. Therefore, I would not interpret their intention or practice as cases of “false irenicism,”537 relativism, or indifferentism, which would fail to appreciate the struggle of the monastics to live in genuine accordance with Roman Catholic teaching and discipline. The monastics specifically express trust in the sacrament of Baptism as the basis for the Christian life in general and the ecumenical process in particular. The rhetorical question of whether we have grasped fully the meaning of a common Baptism needs to be taken seriously. The interviewees consider their Eucharistic practice a logical consequence of their trust in the unifying potential of Baptism. Failing to respond adequately to the mission and promise of Baptism is, in itself, part of the scandal of division. In this light, posing the question of whether it is possible to share the Eucharist is, on its own, insufficient. It needs to be accompanied, or even preceded, by the question of whether it is possible not to share the Eucharist? 537 LG, sec. 11.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw