ABSTRACT
This essay traces the journey of a small dying congregation of Australian women religious-the Servants of the Blessed Sacramentas they wrestled with the challenges of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on Eucharist and their ongoing renewal as a religious community.1 It is the community to which I am committed. The congregation’s defining symbol, as their name suggests, is the Eucharist or the Blessed Sacrament. To the Eucharist the sisters return repeatedly to find the ‘holy Mystery of God’. In telling the story of this community, I will demonstrate how the core symbol of Eucharist, which embodies infinite meanings, has the power to give direction not only to a community’s corporate identity and praxis, but also to a believing person’s life commitment, choices, values, and relationships in a vastly expanding and rapidly changing post-modern, ecclesial and cultural context.
