Advent began with the lighting of a single candle, as it does each year. And not only for us Catholic Christians but for millions of Christians around the globe. I like to think of those single candles forming a larger flame of faith, lighting the darkness and showing the way forward through worrying times.
Lately I’ve been thinking about ecumenism and about the ecumenical Taizé prayer service, my first, I recently participated in. In November, Brother Emile, a member of the Taizé Christian monastic community in France, which attracts thousands of young pilgrims from all over the world each year, came to pray in the Taizé spirit with young people in the Washington, D.C., area.
The Taizé community was established during the Second World War, when Roger Schutz, the 25-year-old son of a Reformed pastor, left Switzerland for the village of Taizé, France, in 1940. There he began helping orphaned children, Jews fleeing Nazi persecution and, later, German prisoners of war. The community grew and was formally founded in 1949, when the first seven brothers took vows of celibacy, simplicity and community. According to the Taizé website, today the ecumenical community comprises around 80 brothers from different church backgrounds and nearly 30 countries — a “parable of community” in divided times. Its vocation: “to be a sign of unity in the Church and in the human family.”
I attended a Taizé prayer service held in the interfaith Memorial Chapel on the campus of the University of Maryland. After the service, Brother Emile led a short discussion and answered questions. He was asked about the community, its brothers and the many pilgrims who journey to Taizé each year, seeking community, prayer and an escape from the worries of secular life. Brother Emile called Taizé “a place to discern what’s really important.”
Ecumenism poses logistical and spiritual challenges for the pilgrimage site. How to handle differences in languages and faith traditions? How to make ecumenism work? Brother Emile’s answer spoke volumes, not only in response to bridging religious differences but also cultural ones. “Maybe divisions are a luxury we can’t afford right now,” he said.
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As I entered the chapel for the prayer service, I was greeted by a single lit candle on the spare altar. Outside the 18-35 Taizé target demographic, I was grateful to find that the service, open to all, had attracted a mix of families, college students, and middle-aged and older adults. I took a program. “In the spirit of Taizé ,” it read, “each song will be sung several times, as a prayer.”
The Taize songs are inspired by ancient canons and were developed in the 20th century to be a style of simple sung prayer (performed in Latin and the vernacular) compatible to the international gatherings. Repetitive, simple melodies foster inclusion, so anyone can sing!
My own seeking led me to the Taizé prayer service. Over that one evening, I found mirrored some of the Ignatian principles — peaceful contemplation, prayer and community-building — that enrich my spiritual life.
At the service, I didn’t head to the half-circle of chairs facing the candle but to a spot along the wall. In truth, I meant to hide. But I didn’t know how much I needed the songs of prayer — and the community gathered on that fall evening, as dusk fell on the campus. I settled in a pew between a man and a woman, whom I quickly discovered were very familiar with the Taizé songs, characterized by chants and sustained notes producing a meditative quality.
The service seemed to start on its own, with a cantor’s voice gently rising to the altar’s domed ceiling. A piano, flute and violin joined in, as did my pew neighbors — a tenor and a soprano. It was then that I realized I had been yearning to sing, not as performance, but as prayer, over the last six months, during which time my parish’s music ministry was quiet. Unsure of the Taizé tunes, I did my best to sight-read the songs printed in the program:
“In the Lord I’ll be ever thankful, in the Lord I will rejoice! Look to God, do not be afraid. Lift up your voices, the Lord is near, lift up your voices the Lord is near.”
With words based on a psalm, we sang the opening Taizé tune, its minor key reflecting the struggles shared in this place of worship. No matter age, background or faith, we humans all can find reason to worry. I fixed my eyes on the candle’s flame and joined my voice with my neighbors’. We repeated the simple refrain until, like a mantra, the sung prayer was in me. This is “praying without ceasing.” This is communal prayer, young and old souls joined together in time that felt suspended.
After the service, Brother Emile remarked that nearly everyone had been singing. And if we can share in song, I thought to myself, imagine how many burdens we might lift by sharing them.
We sang a gloria in four parts, fitting our voices together in a canon. We sang an alleluia. We listened to a short reading, Matthew 6:25-33, which entreats us not to worry. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more important than they?”
Brother Emile told us that among the young people who make pilgrimages to Taizé each year, many want to talk about their worries. I looked around at the college students in that chapel, and I thought of myself at that stage of life — so much worry. I thought of my teens at home. Worry not, Brother Emile said.
He mused about the birds in the passage from Matthew. He quoted Kierkegaard’s philosophy that we should “become like the lilies and the birds” to quiet our anxiety about worldly things. He discussed St. Augustine’s take on birds: If we want to fly, we can’t accumulate unnecessary burdens. “God gives us wings to fly,” Brother Emile said.
We sang and sang, and our voices fairly soared, even in French: “Jésus le Christ, lumière…” (“Lord Jesus Christ your light shines within us. Let not my doubts nor my darkness speak to me.”)
Midway through the service, there was a period of silence that was not awkward but reverent and comforting. Then we sang the “Our Father” and the closing hymn:
“My spirit yearns for you in the night, O God. I seek you, O Lord, with all my soul” (more commonly performed in German as “Ledere Nacht”).
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My own seeking led me to the Taizé prayer service. Over that one evening, I found mirrored some of the Ignatian principles — peaceful contemplation, prayer and community-building — that enrich my spiritual life. My seasonal playlist is stocked with Taizé songs now. I’ve found a potent antidote not only to worry, but also to the harried atmosphere that threatens to derail my good Advent.
As we light each candle on the Advent wreath, I will remember the Taizé flame, and how the light of that single candle seemed to follow me into the night.
Top photo: A Taizé gathering in Poznań, Poland (Maciej Biłas)