IEC2012 Pt. 9: Eucharist, Marriage, and Family

Part 9

Eucharist, Marriage, and Family

Mr. Stephen Cummins, Accord (Marriage Ministry Outreach for Irish Bishops)

Tuesday, June 12 - 7pm

Mr. Cummins started off his talk with the oft-quoted nugget of wisdom from St. Augustine: Become what you receive. In this case, he was referring to the Eucharistic call of the marriage and its family. He thoroughly advocated for a family life rooted in the Eucharist, so that the Body of Christ can nourish and sustain the family.

He said that a husband and wife should treat each other as "subjects of infinite dignity and worth" because, in this kind of relationship, God comes between the couple and enters into their relationship. This reminds me of the image of the Trinity that I've often heard: the Father and the Son share total, complete love with each other, and the love that goes back and forth between them and to all of us is the Holy Spirit. So I think of the husband and wife as being like the Father and Son in the analogy, with the Holy Spirit radiating between them, from each of them, and to their children and everyone else.

Another explanation I've often heard about the love of God involves the "marriage of Christ" - Jesus Christ took the Church as His bride. Mr. Cummins quoted Pope Benedict XVI, who said, "Christ loved the Church and gave His life for her." The love of Christ in His perfect sacrifice is made present to us and for us in every Eucharist we celebrate as the Church, as His Body, the Body of Christ. So by living Eucharistically in your marriage and your family, you can reembrace this love of Christ each time.

He exhorted us to work to sow the seeds of the Eucharist in our families, especially to children as they are growing. He said a word especially about the struggles of teenagers and young adults lapsing from practiced faith or even forsaking their affiliation or relationship with the Church altogether - he views such challenges as being hard for the family but also hard for the Church. He thinks these struggles should be shared and felt by the whole community and the wider Church.

My favorite part? Mr. Cummins started metaphorizing on the Emmaus story, which at first elicited a mini-eye-roll, because what else could possibly be pulled from Emmaus!? Oh, the Bible, and its inexhaustible meaning... Mr. Cummins concluded that, at the heart of the Emmaus disciples' shock was the absence of Christ. They were being great hosts and learning the Scriptures from their guest, and then as they're sitting down to dinner, they realize it's Jesus just as he disappears. Dang! However, they're not actually despondent. Why? Because he left them with the Eucharist. Awesome.

Final nuggets:

• Marriage is more than a contract; it's a covenant. Flexibility and reciprocity in care are more integral than solely having formal expectations or quotas on certain things.
• Catholic parents ought to be better about viewing sacramental preparation as privilege. Too often, it is passed of to schools and/or parishes, something Mr. Cummins views as ok and necessary but not the whole thing. Parents need to play a bigger part in it as the primary educators-in-faith.

IEC2012 Pt. 8: Communion...

As a follow up to my spending June 11-13 at the three first full days of 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, I am writing a series of reflections on the different talks, addresses, and workshops I attended on the theme of The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another. I took notes (including some quotes, hopefully nearly verbatim, that will appear within quotation marks) during the speeches based on different things that struck me personally, and what I offer here on the blog is simply a distillation of how the speeches affected me. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries but rather the reactions of one pilgrim from a subjective perspective.

Part 8

Catechesis: God as Loving Communion

Arhcbishop Barry Hickey, Emeritus of Perth, Australia

Tuesday, June 12 - 2pm

Testimony: Communion in Marriage and Family

Mr. Carl Anderson

3pm

Disclaimer: This was easily my least favorite part of my three days at the IEC, and it has provoked what will be a not-as-intelligent-and-cohesive-as-I-want-it-to-be rant.

I was seriously underwhelmed by the archbishop. He was clearly intelligent, well-spoken, commanding, and a strong leader, but I thought his piece on the value of family was too much of a speech against birth-control. His message was one of "anti," which I am ok with, if it had provided a faithful argument against negative things rather than simply rail on something as wrong in a manner whose best reasoning seemed to be "because" or "since I said so." I have a near insatiable hunger for theology, faith seeking understanding, keynotes, lectures, talks, and speeches, but I couldn't distill out much of use from this speech. Here are the three bullets I wrote before deciding to close my notebook and just listen:

• The alternatives to marriage are futile.
• God Himself as Trinity lives in perfect loving communion (via John Paul II).
• The Archbishop's main argument against contraception - the danger of an anti-child mentality.

Those first two points are wonderful, and I don't disagree with his third point. The modern attitude toward sexuality is that sex absolutely does not have to be procreative, and often, it doesn't have to be unitive either; these are the two things that the Church teaches should be present simultaneously in sex. Modern society seeks to invent ways around nature so that humans don't have to change the behavior they want to practice. Rather than practice chastity, humanity had to develop "birth control" to enable it to freely have sex without worry of pregnancy, which is treated as an inconvenience. Such an attitude toward pregnancy can create a seriously flawed attitude toward sex that can affect how people approach engagement, marriage, and starting a family. It's a slippery slope situation, and that's as solid of an argument as I find here, I think.

I started piecing together how I might approach it, and unfortunately, I can't come up with an argument that I feel is both logical and superior to the one I heard there. So I have to just say what I live and feel is best conscientiously. For me, it just comes back to self-denial, and I acknowledge that this is both unpopular and widely viewed as unrealistic. But I think it remains a valuable and effective discipline. 

Wait to start drinking until you're 21, and you will probably be a more responsible drinker. Save up your money and shop around really well before buying your new iPad or laptop or choosing your new car, and you'll gain discipline and end up with the best product you can have. Spend time with a new friend of the opposite sex to talk a bit, do some social things together, and discern how you fit together before jumping into a relationship, and you'll probably have a better relationship. Let your physical sexuality develop in proportion to the whole intimacy or closeness of your relationship, and the relationship will be more nourishing and loving. Wait to have sex until marriage, and it will mean more because it celebrates the full self-gift of two people to each other in a way only possible within the sacramentality of marriage.

And that's where I lose most people. They don't care to exercise patience. People are happy enough to spend freely on expensive stuff, experiment with drinks, cigarettes, or other drugs, and hastily accelerate physical sexuality with others, often many different people right in a row, let alone involving themselves in a relationship. The tendency toward instant gratification, the aversion to cultivating patience, and people's not wanting to learn from self-denial and slow-playing things are all tremendous barriers to the adoption of a more chaste sexuality.

And now the nuggets from Mr. Anderson:

• Mr. Anderson quoted Jesus, "Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you do not have life within you." But people receiving Eucharist still have life, so how is it different? Not sure what the answer exactly turns out to be, but it is something along the lines of not realizing the full reality of communion made possible by Christ in Christ.
• He told us that Eucharist is always both horizontal and vertical. Benedict XVI teaches us that where we fail to live communion with each other, we fail also to know communion with God.
• He believes that the Eucharist, not our works, is the ultimate measure of our lives (cited JP2 for this). The Eucharist is what makes us effective collaborators in the spreading of God's love and the building of His Kingdom.
• Finally, he sees great similarity between the Trinitarian relationship and human community. Through Eucharist, we can know and execute profoundly the love shared between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God the Son, Jesus Christ, became incarnate by the Holy Spirit, a beautiful miracle that placed God in the human family, by way of the Holy Family, and also in the greater family that is the Church.

Mr. Anderson was a wonderful testifier to faith, but my attention and focus was diluted by the previous talk and the falling rains during his talk - so, my apologies for not having better notes on him. 

IEC2012 Pt. 7: Strengthening Marriage and Family Life

As a follow up to my spending June 11-13 at the three first full days of 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, I am writing a series of reflections on the different talks, addresses, and workshops I attended on the theme of The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another. I took notes (including some quotes, hopefully nearly verbatim, that will appear within quotation marks) during the speeches based on different things that struck me personally, and what I offer here on the blog is simply a distillation of how the speeches affected me. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries but rather the reactions of one pilgrim from a subjective perspective.

Part 7

Strengthening Marriage and Family Life

Mr. John Quinn, writer/broadcaster and Bishop Christopher Jones, President of the Council for Marriage and Family, Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference

Tuesday, June 12 - 11.30am

Bishop Jones' Remarks

Bishop Jones opened by explaining, via the Catechism, that marriage is "an efficacious sign of Christ's love." Marriage is not just a symbolic thing, but rather, it's something that makes Christ effectively present in the couple. Christ is the perfect self-gift, as the One God who became man and offered Himself as a totally innocent sacrifice on behalf of our sins. Catholic marriage is meant to be like the perfect self-gift of Christ; just as Christ wed Himself to the Church, the husband and wife must seek to make perfect self-gift of themselves to each other, and thus make Christ and His love present.

Good marriages create homes that make known and present the love of the family of God. Bishop Jones broke it down really nicely: the domestic church (probably my favorite name ever for the family) localize the joy and love of the People of God. We believe in a Triune God, a God in three persons that are in complete, reciprocal relation with one another. This loving relationship of the Trinity is realized and shared in the family and the home they create. The love experienced here is a foretaste of the love that we can know in eternal life and love with God.

This was the beginning of a day that taught me how the love of God is the love of a marriage and family and that a Eucharistic life is the means that establishes, renews, and reinforces this reality in the domestic church that is a family.

Mr. Quinn's Remarks

John Quinn is well-known in Ireland for a his radio program and related book, Letters to Olive. A reflection he did, in the form of a letter, on the life of his wife and their time together before her passing away as just a middle-aged woman. As they were quite fond of writing letters - their courtship began by correspondence at an infirmary for TB - his tribute to her followed this form as well. His presentation at the IEC was a letter he wrote to his wife, read aloud to all of us, full of insights, anecdotes, and heart-wrenching emotion. Some of the best...

• "One day, it will delight us to remember these things."
• "Happily ever after is for Hollywood and fairy tales... Marriage is about a 4-letter word: life."
• "Let there be spaces in your togetherness; if you don't, that's when troubles - deep freezes - arise."
• "Love may every day be implied but never declared." (actually, from Jane Austen)
• "The best way of giving is thanksgiving."

IEC2012 Pt. 6: Where is the Young Adult Church Today?

Friends! A quick word of thanks to everyone who follows my blog: this is my 100th post! I can't thank all of you enough for the affirmations and kind words along the years. I write these posts for the sake of trying to use and grow my gifts and passions, combining my enjoyment of writing with my passion for reflecting on our faith and sharing my thoughts. It's wonderfully life-giving for me when I get to sit down with an idea and flesh it out here, but the greater joy comes from knowing how loyally so many of you bookmark and follow the blog. I'm so heartened to have all of you keeping track of my posts through Facebook, Google Reader, and bookmarks bars. Please do keep reading (and telling me what you think if you get the chance). Here's to 100 more posts and beyond!

As a follow up to my spending June 11-13 at the three first full days of 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, I am writing a series of reflections on the different talks, addresses, and workshops I attended on the theme of The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another. I took notes (including some quotes, hopefully nearly verbatim, that will appear within quotation marks) during the speeches based on different things that struck me personally, and what I offer here on the blog is simply a distillation of how the speeches affected me. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries but rather the reactions of one pilgrim from a subjective perspective.

Part 6

Where is the Young Adult Church Today?

Mr. Gerard Gallagher, Office of Evangelization, Archdiocese of Dublin

Tuesday, June 12 - 10am

Mr. Gallagher's talk

Mr. Gallagher founded his talk on an unfortunate reality in the Church today: the Church loves to talk about young people, but it doesn't talk to them (or with them, I'd add) or carry out good mission to them. His remedy - his mission statement, if you will - is to provide young people the means and the methods to begin searching for purpose and meaning in their life with the foundation being a relationship with God through Christ.

Mr. Gallagher feels that we need young people to be apostles to one another. In ministering to their peers, young people can utilize their unique perspective of modern culture as they minister to one another.

He explained that the mission of the Church in pastoral youth ministry should be founded on three main pillars:

1. evangelization
2. development
3. service

It's easy to say this from what was a comfortable seat in the crowd, but I'd offer a different strategy... Service needs to be at the heart of a teenager's faith development, but my two complementary pillars to it would be catechesis and social life. Ideally, the three can be working together almost all the time. I think youth ministry is futile if it's not fun. Fun is the catalyst to get them interested, the momentum to keep them interested, and the attraction to stay interested as faith takes root and grows. When they're having fun, and doing it socially - with other people their age, with peers, not just adult leaders and priests - then they are more amenable to catechesis (teaching moments) and can find a comfort zone in learning and living their faith. It takes YouTube videos, silly dances, and using popular culture (new music, TV shows) to hook them, and good youth ministry successfully uses the content of what's already in their lives to show them the entry point for faith.

Mr. Gallagher suggested those who still come to mass can loosely fit three categories: (1) committed people from families that transmit the faith generationally, (2) conservative people that are more inclined toward clericalism (a priest-centered view of Church), orthodoxy, and formalism/ritualism/devotionals, and (3) confused people who come out of habit but without really knowing what draws them.

He says that sacramental preparation is actually a form of family ministry that overlaps with youth formation. Without comprehensive, extensive, sturdy pastoral programming, young people don't stand much of a chance. Mr. Gallagher believes the key for youth ministry is responding to young people's desire for "authenticity and simplicity." Beyond just statements and speeches, there should be a preferential option for the young to make some real youth ministry happen.

When youth are active in the Church, Mr. Gallagher feels it can be a big source of hope for adults' faith. However, he encourages interaction between all ages. Young people can't be an exhibit, on display in a religious fish bowl. The members of the community must have shared, communal experience. This is the point that I felt to be most resonant.

Personally, I'm averse to youth groups forged in the model of LifeTeen or the Irish programme Youth 2000. I'm ignorant because I've never really been involved in either, but I'm not wild about situations where the youth are (almost) always segregated from the wider community. There needs to be special programming for young people - movie watches, social outings (bowling, mini-golf, sports games, etc.), faith-sharing situations - but when it comes to prayer and worship, they should be in the main flow of the parish and local community. Young people should be able to be singers/cantors, musicians, lectors, EM's, altar servers, ushers/ministers of hospitality at all/any/every mass and service at the Church. I'm not against age-specific choirs forming, but I am against quarantining the visible youth presence and involvement in the liturgy to a specific mass. They need to grow into a place in the community that can be sustained as they gain adult independence and grow into making lives for themselves.

In a nice, slightly pointed moment, Mr. Gallagher asked, what about starting youth ministry not just with ice-breakers but with the Gospel? It's a nice ideal we can keep working toward.

During the Q&A follow-up, a veteran of Net Ministries (an int'l volunteer ministry organization working in Ireland) shed some nice light on things for us. Mr. Gallagher's speech fell short in terms of practical, specific suggestions, of which he really offered none. This young lady stepped up and offered two nice insights that I'll leave you with:

1. Meet youth where they are: allow them to freely talk about temptations and vices, and work with them as they come.
2. Use their ideas to nurture their creativity: let them put suggestions into action (my comment: within reason, especially remaining respectful to liturgy), and help them own it so they can learn from the process and grow personally and as ministers.

IEC2012 Pt. 5: From Big Bang to Big Mystery

As a follow up to my spending June 11-13 at the three first full days of 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, I am writing a series of reflections on the different talks, addresses, and workshops I attended on the theme of The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another. I took notes (including some quotes, hopefully nearly verbatim, that will appear within quotation marks) during the speeches based on different things that struck me personally, and what I offer here on the blog is simply a distillation of how the speeches affected me. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries but rather the reactions of one pilgrim from a subjective perspective.

Part 5

From Big Bang to Big Mystery: Reflections on Human Origins

Rev. Dr. Brendan Purcell, Professor at Notre Dame University, Australia

Monday, June 11 - 7pm

Dr. Purcell's talk

I initially was thinking this talk was going to be about cosmology, a look into how we can associate the mystery of our Creator God with what science is learning about the "Big Bang" and the origins of the universe. However, Dr. Purcell deals more so with biological and evolutionary considerations, tracing the links between humanity and the world that we came from. He frames humanity and our lived existence in the context of Creation and its Creator.

He started by looking back to the roots of monotheistic religion. Yahweh and the Israelites transformed spirituality, which he defined as the human quest for gods/God, because Yahweh showed that God is personal. Yahweh intervened for Israel and with Israel in the Israelites' lives.

Dr. Purcell said that God didn't create the world in several acts per se, but rather, Creation is a grand, whole act of love by God - what Dr. Purcell called "Creative Love." God gives us a share in His existence but also wants us to embrace and harness the creative power that He gave us - a tip that sounded to me like Dr. Purcell's interpretation of humanity as stewards of Creation, as the ones with dominion over it. We are intended to use our rationality and innovation - the gifts God gave us - to be an extension of Creative Love. Dr. Purcell said that this isn't evidence of some weakness on God's part; conversely, it's actually an example of His infinite goodness.

In a nod to godless skeptics and atheists, Dr. Purcell quoted the great astrophysicist, Fred Hoyle. Hoyle renounced his atheism in the face of his career's work of studying the universe: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion [the existence of a superintellect] almost beyond question." (full quote courtesy of UCSB)

Dr. Purcell's view of the tensions and relations between science and religion is indicative of his faith. He believes if gaps exist in our explanations of the universe and its origins, the gaps are in science, the limits of human reason, and in our vocabulary. To Dr. Purcell, "God's Act of Creation is full and perfect." This includes Christ's sacrifice, which was one that gave over all six levels of being - human, zoological, biological, botanical, physical, and chemical - to the seventh and greatest level, the Divine. Christ gave a whole and full sacrifice to God.

He then outlined "7 Grace Notes" special to human beings:

1. We are all member of a species that is only recently diversifying - the first human beings 200,000-140,000 years ago in Sub-Saharan Africa aren't that old, relatively speaking. Part of this point was his argument (I didn't record the scientific data he cited) that we didn't "come from monkeys."
2. We have a brain capacity to receive and produce speech alongside a unique physical ability to vocalize.
3. Human infancy/childhood lasts much longer for us than other animals - we have the chance to learn intellectually, to go beyond instincts and transmitted knowledge. This is not a biological advantage, but it is crucial to our nature as social beings.
4. We have a penchant for symbolism, a capacity and desire for inner meaning and next-level significance.
5. Human languages give unique realization to our form of being (human).
6. We have unique knowledge that combines sensory experience, understanding, and judgments.
7. Freedom. We can make free decisions above this threefold equation of knowledge, which constitutes a conscience that can override instinct and mechanized survivalism.

Some other nuggets:

• Procreation = pro-creation : participation in the one Creative Love.
• Citing Benedict XVI, he said that Eucharist helps make the world - the whole cosmos - into a living liturgy in which all things can give praise to God.
• History is the exposition of the reality of Christ as large, having an infinite reach. Christ, who is the God that exists beyond time, entered history and instituted the Eucharist within time. Through the Eucharist, Christ can reach all people in all spaces and in all times.

IEC2012 Pt. 4: Word of Life Testimony

As a follow up to my spending June 11-13 at the three first full days of 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, I am writing a series of reflections on the different talks, addresses, and workshops I attended on the theme of The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another. I took notes (including some quotes, hopefully nearly verbatim, that will appear within quotation marks) during the speeches based on different things that struck me personally, and what I offer here on the blog is simply a distillation of how the speeches affected me. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries but rather the reactions of one pilgrim from a subjective perspective.

Part 4

Testimony: Word of Life

Dr. Maria Voce, Leader of the Focolare Movement

Monday, June 11 - 3pm

Dr. Voce gave her testimony in Italian, which gave me my only opportunity to use my nifty translation earpiece.

Dr. Voce testified to us that baptism is our invitation to be in communion with Christ and with all baptized persons, a nice extension of the theme of the Congress to invite us to consider every baptized person in our reflections on universal communion.

She added that the pursuit of this ideal is "an invitation, not a command." When it comes to realizing such communion in our lives as baptized Christians, we must seek it freely. We must want to say yes to working with others, and ideally, we grow in a way where all Christians can give their yes all together to greater communion with Christ and one another.

The Focolare Movement seeks to give an intimate hearing to the Gospel and, as a result of increased closeness to God's Word, give life to it in their lives. The first members of the movement had a miraculous vision during their reflections on the Bible in which the letters on the page of their Bible became illuminated, inspiring them to proclaim Christ as truly alive. Their first meeting centered on the illuminated letters they saw in the Bible, the prayer of Jesus for unity, "that they may be one."

She told us that reciprocal love - the combination of giving to others and receiving from their love in turn - is a cornerstone of Christian love. The pinnacle of her message was a simple exhortation to live the Gospel: we should live in such a way that, if all the copies of the Gospels were destroyed, the Bible could be recreated based on our actions.

IEC2012 Pt. 3: A Passion for Unity

As a follow up to my spending June 11-13 at the three first full days of 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, I am writing a series of reflections on the different talks, addresses, and workshops I attended on the theme of The Eucharist: Communion with Christ and with One Another. I took notes (including some quotes, hopefully nearly verbatim, that will appear within quotation marks) during the speeches based on different things that struck me personally, and what I offer here on the blog is simply a distillation of how the speeches affected me. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries but rather the reactions of one pilgrim from a subjective perspective.

Part 3

Catechesis on Communion and Baptism: A Passion for the Unity of Christ's Body

Brother Alois Löser, Prior of the Taizé Community

Monday, June 11 - 2pm

Br. Alois giving us our daily catechesis (teaching moment) in the Main Arena of the RDS

"Without the Resurrection, we would not be here," Brother Roger said. "Christ is communion. He did not come to earth to start a new church but to gather all the communion in God."

Br. Alois (check out this brief bio for a better insight into the 2nd Prior in the history of Taizé) was maybe my favorite speaker of the Congress. His unique perspective as the prior of the globally preeminent ecumenical community was integral to the Monday's theme of Christian Unity. He is clearly an idealist and a staunch optimist, preaching the greatest of ecumenical hopes as realizable to a crowd of many different Christians. On the whole, I think he might be aiming higher than is realistic, but I think it is part of his personal call and the unique call of leading that community. I believe he is answering this call from God with incredible, inspiring faithfulness.

Unlike the first prior of Taizé, Alois is a Catholic. He told us, though, that he most conclusively discovered the Catholicity of the Church and his Catholic-Christian faith through the way he experienced it as lived in the Taizé Community.

Citing St. Paul, Alois points to the truth that there is only one baptism, that which initiates us into Christ. This emphasis by Alois has been popularized by one of the many mantra-based, circular prayer songs that has emerged from the Taizé Prayer music, the music that the brothers and their pilgrims sing together in prayer at Taize that has radiated outward all around the world. Its use of simple lyrics with realistically singable melodies have spread far and wide, due in part also to the songs' inclusion of many languages, sometimes adapting songs' refrains to work in several languages. "There is one God, one faith, one baptism..."

Br. Alois suggested to us that, when we are asked what religion we are, our answer should be, "I am a baptized Christian." Alois believes that the first and primary way that we should identify ourselves is as a person who has been baptized into Christ. He feels that this is at the root of some of the disunity among Christians.

My understanding of Alois is that we must seek to make the default setting for all Christians an emphasis on baptism, the one baptism. I don't think we can just say "it's all the same Christianity" or "we all believe in Jesus" and just leave it at that; regardless of who/what is right or wrong, the divisions within Christianity are both theological and emotional - the schisms created rivalry and tension on top of doctrinal or ritual discrepancies. So before we set out to unifying our theology and belief into a more united Christian catholic Church, we need to focus on our shared baptism and what it means.

A repeated theme of our ministry this year in Ireland has been the almost non-existent catechesis around baptism, both now for newly baptized babies and for adults who have grown up with no understanding of their baptism. Unfortunately, I found myself with much of the same ignorance that we are witnessing. The core root of it is that we need to realize the dignity of our baptism. The way that I personally summarize this is that we have been baptized into someone and something bigger than us.

We are initiated into Christ, and we must live as His love. As we live Christian lives, we can live in Him, as His Body, the Body of Christ, many members sharing together in the One who gave us eternal life and the gift of Love. We can start from there, deciding that as Christians, our primary identification lies in Christ. Perhaps from there, we can build toward fuller unity based on our shared study and prayer in the Bible; the 2008 Catholic Synod of Bishops affirms Baptism and the Word as the existing unities for Christians to share and build upon. Alois believes that lived faith and lived community are trailblazers toward theological communion.

When I studied ecumenism in London (here's links to 2 posts I wrote during the study: A Chat with a Monsignor and an intro to the project), my main takeaway - the thesis to my summary paper - was that ecumenism breeds a troublesome lack of identity, a genericized/vanilla Christianity that becomes too watery. Alois pointed to the foundations laid by his predecessor Roger, saying he never felt a loss or lack of identity in the Taize endeavors. To him, identity is communion with Christ, as realized in interaction with brothers and sisters. Roger found reconciliation between "the faith of his origins" and Catholic and Orthodox faith. And thus reconciliation became the charism of Taizé, bringing Christians together into fuller communion. He taught that Taizé must be "a parable of community" to the world.

Alois told us, "In the heart of God, the Church is one." It is up to us to discover ways to live and experience this reality of God. When it came to Roger and cultivating such an endeavor at Taizé, he sought full communion among Christians by having all members of the community (made up of Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox men) receive Catholic Eucharist (under dispensation from the local bishop) and seeking to utilize the Pope as a unifying leader, a practice that John Paul II had advocated, offering himself to other Christians. Roger and Alois have done well over the years to build positive relationships with the popes in Rome as well patriarchs and bishops from several other Christian denominations. Taizé exists as a concrete example of something that Christians across the lines have agreed upon, not just in negotiated statements but also in significant practice.

Some other nuggets:

• At Taizé, the prayer and worship consists of three daily prayer services, biblical teaching, and group discussions. They celebrate mostly Catholic masses for their Sunday prayer with occasional Orthodox or other Christian Sunday services instead.
• He admits that new Taizé-inspired communities may not have orthodox doctrines and beliefs, existing in some area even more shadowy than the place where Taizé sits in the scene of Christianity. Always the visionary, Alois still upholds these communities as places of utmost hope.