64 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION ecumenism in the ongoing ecumenical process. Section 2.1 has defined the object of this study as the theological rationale embedded in the practice of Eucharistic hospitality as encountered in the ecumenical monastic communities of Taizé and Bose and, therefore, the practice itself and the experiences of the monastics engaging in it as the points of departure. Such an endeavor is typically the field of practical or pastoral theology. As I have already indicated in section 1.4, pastoral research is needed to ‘disclose’ these insights and to make them accessible for the theological debate. This research, therefore, intends to articulate the practices, experiences, and insights of members of ecumenical monastic communities, as the subtitle of this chapter suggests. The discipline of practical theology provides the methodology for a research question which starts from practice – even though the discipline initially emerged as a way to implement theological insights in ecclesial practice. As such, it focused on theological assessment of practices from an academic theological perspective and on training ministers. However, Vatican II acknowledged a strand of theology based on principles expressed by theologians belonging to or associated with the Nouvelle Théologie, such as Henri de Lubac, Henri Bouillard, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, MarieDominique Chenu, Jean Daniélou, and also Edward Schillebeeckx and Karl Rahner. They overcame the neo-Thomistic dichotomy between the natural and the supernatural by stressing the concepts of creation and incarnation. Their argumentations differed yet they arrived at similar conclusions: a reconciliation between theology and life and a rehabilitation of everyday reality as a source for theology. Hans Boersma explains: De Lubac and Bouillard tended to draw on the Greek Church Fathers and the neo-Platonic tradition; so, they highlighted the sacramental link in its upward direction: nature pointed upward to the supernatural, thus making it present. Balthasar and Chenu tended to be a great deal more critical of the Platonic tradition and were fearful of an idealism that undermined the goodness of creation; as a result, they accentuated the sacramental connection in its downward direction: the Incarnation valued the created order and thereby gave it its sacramental character.164 164 Hans Boersma, “Nature and the Supernatural in La Nouvelle Théologie: The Recovery of a Sacramental Mindset,” New Blackfriars 93, no. 1043 (January 1, 2012): 35, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2005.2011.01434.x.
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