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Document Details : Title: Gemeinsam am Tisch des Hern? Subtitle: Eucharistiegemeinschaft für konfessionsverbindende Paare Author(s): JORISSEN, Hans Journal: Marriage, Families & Spirituality Volume: 7 Issue: 1 Date: 2001 Pages: 26-36 DOI: 10.2143/INT.7.1.2004530 Abstract : Together at the Table of the Lord? Reflections on Sharing of the Eucharist in Interchurch Marriages Taking into consideration the sacraments of baptism, the eucharist, marriage and Holy Orders the author develops the thesis that the question of eucharistic hospitality cannot reasonably be relegated to the category of exceptional need in individual cases; rather, its solution requires a theological, or more precisely a sacramental-ecclesiological foundation. Since baptism on the one hand makes a person a member of the one and only Church of Christ (and not of this or that confessional church) and the eucharist on the other hand is not only the sign of full church membership, but also a means to its realisation, there is virtually a kind of partial church communion between the separated churches and ecclesial communities, and this now opens up the possibility of a corresponding kind of partial eucharistic or Lord’s supper communion. The fundamental consensus in justification teaching and its implications for baptismal and eucharistic theology should be seen here as definitive for dialogue. In the case of interchurch couples we need to bear in mind that the sacrament of marriage is as much a sacrament of church unity as baptism and the eucharist. Christian married couples belonging to different confessions who want to live their marriage in Christian responsibility realise in their faithfulness to their respective churches church communion rather than church separation. The author argues that eucharistic hospitality should be offered generally to the non-Catholic partner and not just in particular individual cases, and he does not see any further hindrance to a mutual reciprocal sharing of the eucharist or Lord’s supper, since the acknowledgement of the validity of Reformed Orders seems possible and indeed requisite from the Catholic side. |
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