Discovering Taize, August 20, 1940

Human beings only create by drawing on their poverty.  I am well placed to assert that today:  it is exactly thirty years ago that I discovered Taize.

Br. Roger of Taize, from his Journal August 20, 1970

Br. Roger of Taize - Rest in Peace

When I was young, at a time when Europe was torn apart by so many conflicts, I kept on asking myself: Why all these confrontations?  Why do so many people, even Christians, condemn one another out of hand?  And I wondered:  is there, on this earth, a way of reaching complete understanding of others?  Then came a day - I can still remember the date, and I could describe the place:  the subdued light of a late summer evening, darkness settling over the countryside -- a day when I made a decision.  I said to myself, if this way does exist, begin with yourself and resolve to understand every person fully.  That day, I was certain the vow I had made was for life.  It involved nothing less than returning again and again, my whole life long, to this irrevocable decision:  seek to understand all, rather than to be understood.

Br. Roger of Taize 1915-2005

On August 16, during a prayer service at Taize,

Brother Roger is fatally wounded by a mentally unbalanced assailant.

  He dies at the age of ninety.

Patriarch Athenagoras

This day, Patriarch Athenagoras enters the life of eternity.  With him we lose a man of the same prophetic vein as John XXIII.  He had no lack of trials in his final years...  Nevertheless, he was always optimistic.  "In the evening, when I retire to my room," he told me once, "I close the door on all my cares, and I say:  Tomorrow!"

Br. Roger of Taize, written July 7, 1972

Fasting or Feasting

One day St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross met for a meal.  Grapes were brought in.  "I'm not going to eat any," said John of the Cross.  "Too many people have none."  Teresa answered, "I, on the contrary, am going to eat them, to praise God for these grapes."  Their conversation mirrors one of the tensions of the contemporary Church.

Br. Roger of Taize

Lent

Lent:  forty days granted us in which we marvel at a love too great for words.

 Br. Roger of Taize

Finding Oneself

In the Gospel, to be oneself means searching deeply until the irreplaceable gift given to each one of us is revealed.  Through that special gift, unlike anyone else's, each person is brought to fulfillment in God.

Br. Roger of Taize

Advent waiting

A brother brings into my room a reproduction of one of the most ancient pictures in the catacombs:  a man praying with both hands raised.  This gesture comes down to us from the dawn of time, from humankind's first beginnings.  A symbol of expectant waiting.  Looking at it, I tell myself:  like every Christian, you are first and foremost a man who waits expectantly, and prayer is one of the clearest symbols of this.

Br. Roger of Taize

Leo Tolstoy (8-28-1828 to 11-20-1910)

I admit that I am guilty, and vile, and worthy of contempt for failing to carry out Christ's teaching.  At the same time, not to justify myself, but simply to explain my lack of consistency, I say:  "Look at my life now and compare it to my former life.  You will see that I am trying to live out the truth I proclaim.  True, I have not fulfilled a fraction of Christ's will, and I am ashamed of this, but I have failed to fulfill his Word not because I do not wish to, but because I have been unable to.  Teach me how to escape from the net of temptations that surrounds me, help me, and I will fulfill Christ's teachings.  Even without help I wish and hope to fulfill them.  Attack me, I do this myself, but attach me rather than the path I follow, which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies.  If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way simply because I am staggering side to side?


"If it is not the right way, then show me another way.  But if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me and keep me on the true path, just as I am ready to support you.  Do not mislead me, do not be glad that I have gotten lost, do not gleefully shout, 'Look at him!  He said he was going home, but there he is crawling into a bog!'  No, do not gloat, but give me your help and support.  For you are not devils in the swamp, but people like me who are seeking the way home.  For I am alone and it cannot be that I wish to go into the swamp.  Help me, my heart is breaking in despair that we have all lost our way."


So this is my attitude to Christ's teaching.  I try to fulfill it with all I've got.  I not only repent for each failure, but also beg for help in fulfilling it.  And I joyfully welcome anyone who, like me, is looking for the path; and I listen to him.

Br. Roger's Prayer

In all things peace of heart, joy, simplicity, and mercy.

Br. Roger of Taize

The Witness of Prayer

Very often a man or a woman who dared to pray alone in a church has been, by their perseverance, a living appeal to others.  It only takes one for many to be drawn along in the end.

Br. Roger of Taize

Look Outside

Anyone who looks only at themselves will inevitably sink into melancholy.  Open your eyes to creation all around you, and the shadows already begin to disperse.

Br. Roger of Taize

Autumn harvest

Gather everything that happens, trivialities included, without reservation, regret, or nostalgia, in inexhaustible wonder.  Step out, forward, one step at a time, from doubt toward faith, not worrying about the impossible ahead.  Light fire, even with the thorns that tear you.

Br. Roger of Taize

Great Souls

The best and most nourishing souls are made of a few great and radiant acts of goodness and a thousand tiny obscure miseries which feed their goodness, like the wheat that lives from the decomposition of the soil.

Marie Noel, 20th c. French Poet

Young and Old

Every scribe who becomes a disciple of the kingdom of Heaven is like a householder who brings out from his storeroom new things as well as old. (Mt. 13:52)

I was brought up in the old traditions, but listening to younger people and sharing in their private struggles rids me of certain reflexes of fear. Without these thousands of young people here on the hill, where would I be now, in spite of my desire to be open.

Br. Roger of Taize

The Scientific Mind

Engineers taking a refresher course in information processing share our supper.  An atheist among them vigorously contests all that Christians believe.  His scientific mind gauges everything by what he can know.  At the end of the evening I tell him:  "The questions you have been asking are questions that a man living by the certainty of God also dares to keep asking himself during his life.  This kind of questioning, part of our basic doubt, does not prevent us from constantly setting out from doubt to belief."

Brother, who, for you, is Christ?

For me, Christ is he by whom I live, but also the one for whom I, with you, am searching.

Br. Roger of Taize

Writing as Fundamental Indendence

It is good to write each day and if necessary oblige myself to do so.  It is my handwork, as someone else pounds dough and makes bread.  It is the means of a fundamental independence.

Br. Roger of Taize

Trust as the Basis of Discipleship

Following Christ with a steadfast heart does not mean lighting fireworks that flare up brightly and then go out.  It means setting out, and then remaining, on a road of trust that can last our whole life long.

Br. Roger of Taize

Mothers and Grandmothers

Mothers or grandmothers can rejoice.  Their acts of faithfulness sometimes leave traces whose total results will never be seen in their lifetimes.

Br. Roger of Taize

Forgiveness

You forgive not in order to change the other person, but simply to follow Christ.

Br. Roger of Taize