Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I have just completed a one-week retreat at the Taize monastery in south east France. I leave here rested, centered, and hopeful.

My church hosts a Taize service each Sunday evening at 6 pm and as part of my sabbatical travels I wanted to come here and experience worship and community life first-hand. What I found is that my community has done a faithful job in capturing the essence of Taize worship.

You certainly don’t come here for the food. To say the three meals you receive a day are simple is a vast understatement. Bread and jam for breakfast. Tuna from a can with instant mashed potatoes for dinner. It is not about the food.

Though in a way it is, because the meals confirm the bare bones simplicity of the practice of the community here.

I arrived on a Sunday and joined about 200 hundred pilgrims, 90% under age 30. By the time I left the following Sunday the numbers had swelled to 500. By Easter, 4000 will make their way here. No matter whether it is 100 or thousands, each pilgrim enters into a very similar rhythm of life.

The day is organized around three prayer services a day – 8:15 am, 12:30 pm, and 8:30 pm. At each you enter in silence as the loud pealing bells calling all to prayer subside. The brothers enter and take their place in the long center section of the expansive church. Pilgrims line the side areas filling the floor, though there are a few benches along the wall. The chanting begins.

The chanting is the heart of Taize. The only spoken words at worship are one short reading from scripture. The rest of the service consists of 10-12 chants in four-part harmony drawn from the songbook with 155 choruses from over 20 languages. The chant number is shown on a LED screen.

No announcements. No sermon. No collection. Just a series of prayers chanted in beautiful harmony.

The rest of the day consists of a large group bible study, a small group discussion circle, and chores. That’s it. At Taize, all 365 days of the year follow this same pattern.

I am sure it is a very different experience during the summer months when up to 5000 young pilgrims descend on Taize for these one-week retreats. But the pattern is the same when only 50 or 60 souls are gathered for the week in the dead of winter: prayer, bible study, chores (and bad food).

I stretched the rules a bit and took six young adults for a walk to the beautiful neighboring village of Ameugny to have a pint in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. We were hosted by Wolfgang Schmidberger who runs a pub called Papillon. Here were people from Latvia, the Netherlands, England, Germany, Australia, and the U.S. drinking German beer in a French pub in honor of an Irish saint. I would say that captures the international spirit of Taize.

The last lunch of the week I was invited by Brother Pedro to share lunch with the brothers. There are about 100 in total with 60-70 at the monastery at any given time. As I sat and ate in silence as the community does each day and gazed through the window at the glorious French countryside, I was in awe of the 70 year witness of this ecumenical community. All those years their mission has been reconciliation, especially through giving hope to the world’s young people. This old pilgrim certainly left with a heart full of hope.