Eukaristin - "kidnappad" av prästerna?

Jag fick ett mail nyligen apropå ett djärvt dokument som de holländska dominikanerna gav ut för drygt ett år sen och som det blev en del rabalder omkring.

Har utelämnat några personliga saker, men allt som kan vara av intresse för andra finns kvar.

Det knyter an till ett samtal i ett annat inlägg om eukaristin och prästerna/lekfolket.

Det verkar ha utvecklats ett slags katolskt emerging church.... På tvärs mot hierarkin...

Vill gärna ha kommentarer till det nedanstående...!

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"In a nutshell, they [the Dominicans] are saying that the shortage of ordained priests in Holland is giving rise to the practice of holding communion services - where there is the liturgy of the word, and the distribution of the eucharist, but no consecration - the hosts distributed have been previously consecrated.

The Dominicans ask why there couldn't be people in the communities where there is no ordained priest, called from the congregation (like the leaders of the communion services), men and women alike, who would be trained empowered to celebrate the eucharist for their communities. It's a wonderful idea - one that puts the eucharist where it belongs, right in the communities of faith who gather to remember.

I'm beginning to believe the the eucharist has been hijacked by the institutional church - that it really belongs in homes, with families and small communities. That it is the inherent right of all christians to gather, break bread, and remember with the Risen One in their midst. Let the priestly class become like rabbis - ones who teach, and preside over larger regional gatherings of faith communities which could be held periodically.

/.../

When the first Christians gathered, there was no ordained priesthood - there were just believers - people who gathered around a meal to remember Jesus and celebrate his resurrection. In those meals, where the brothers and sisters gathered, there were many diverse gifts, but there was also a fundamental equality - no Jews, Greeks, slaves, free, male female. All were ONE. One in Him - one with the Father through Him, one is the Spirit He sent. One as branches are with a vine.

Could the priest shortage be the Lord's way of asking us all to reclaim our own priesthood - the one into which we were baptized with Christ?

/.../ what is it that a priest does if not celebrate and lead the Eucharistic celebration. When you feel that call, it's a call to make Christ present in your life, in your ministry, and at the Table where the priest is most a priest. That table doesn't belong to Benedict XVI, it doesn't belong to the Archbishop or bishop of your diocese - it belongs to the Lord!

And the Lord continues to call the most unlikely of people to that table with him. The stones rejected by the builders continue to become cornerstones, it's simply the way God works.

/.../

I am convinced that there is a new way of being Catholic that is emerging, slowly, and transforming the Church. It may leave the Constantinian and Medieval trappings of pomp and power in the dust - and the legalism that is worthy of the most rigid pharisee. But it will preserve what is best and most life-giving in Catholicism. That emerging Catholic church is happening embryonically in the ministry of married priests, womanpriests, and in the lives of members of communities of faith that grow and thrive without a male, ordained priest (I'm thinking of many religious orders of women who have been calling their own to celebrate the Eucharist for more than 30 years)."

Fr. Rich Hasselbach

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