164 PART TWO: AN EMPIRICAL ACCOUNT of that depth also with the others. Um… and because of the difficulty to put it... sort of... outside of, of what is common, it would be easier, for, under many aspects, but I think we would indeed lose a very important source... um... maybe more clear now what I mean... ... ....392 Brother TB’s hesitance needs to be taken seriously. On the one hand, he affirms that in Taizé, the Eucharist is an important source for the community’s common life and ecumenical process. In that sense, his experience encourages us to acknowledge this potential of the sacrament and could be used to argue in favor of Eucharistic sharing in ecumenical contexts. Yet, on the other hand, TB warns against simplistic interpretations: sharing the Eucharist does not automatically increase ecumenical growth. In Taizé, its celebration is embedded in other spiritual resources and is part of the bigger processes within the community. The connection between the Eucharist and other resources will be discussed in more detail in section 8.1. The idea that the Eucharist is not at our disposal and that it is a category that transcends denominational identity is expressed by others as well and will be the focus of section 8.2. In the next section, we will examine the way in which the monastics, like Brother TB above, elaborate on the concept of ‘growth’. 5.3 ORGANIC GROWTH The mutual and dynamic relation between the common life and a shared Eucharist as presented in the previous sections is intrinsically part of the process of organic growth that the monastics describe. As indicated above, Brother TB refers to the ecumenical process of the community as growing, like a family or an organism. He makes clear that the process in Taizé is not a construct, carefully planned and executed. Therefore, he insists that the process in Taizé, and especially its Eucharistic practice, cannot be regarded as a model in a technical sense, or a scheme that can be copied to another context simply and effectively. I will discuss this aspect in more detail in section 6.4. TB also stresses that ‘growth’ is not qualified in terms like better or worse. I asked him if he considered the changes made to the Eucharistic practice over the years an improvement. He prefers to compare the developments with the process of maturing: 392 TB-1,62.
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