Late posts: the Taizé week rolls on

Brother Leandro catches me quickly after Bible Introduction and invites me to lunch with the brothers, from which I am immediately humbled beyond words. Why, out of the hundreds of young men am I invited, he who talks too much in group and is self-devouring in blog entries and, while amazed at so much about Taizé, definitely is not called to celibacy? This question joins the ranks of all of the other things that I cannot possibly know, and I quickly consider myself blessed and step out, after worship, into the sacristy, which leads to all of the places in Taizé that I never thought I would visit.

I follow Brother Leandro and a 23 year-old American brother to the big house where most of the brothers live, and we all gather in a long room with a spread of veg, potato & salmon casserole (it is a Lenten Friday, after all, and there are Catholics), and good. Burgundian wine from the neighboring countryside. The first half is all eaten in silence, with classical music wiping away any of the apprehension and forcing that I put upon myself when I encounter a new community of people, and I cannot help but feel awe among a room of people that have dedicated their lives to peace, healing, and the very experience that is proving so meaningful to me.

The silence is broken by Brother Aloise, the abbot, talking about his recent trip to Rome. The pope is tired, he says, and I can only imagine the hurt wracking that man. To love the Church with your whole life and then to see people who are supposed to represent it destroy it with their actions, and so criminally... But that is my segue. Sitting, waiting for the pope with him, were four Cistercian monks who, to pass the time, began to sing Taizé songs, even though such chants only come from a tiny community in France, and they go through most of the hymnbook. People wonder how Taizé can do such work with young people and with ecumenism, but honestly good work is being done all over the world. In Russia, he says, Catholics and Orthodox have ceased proselytizing amongst one another and instead, the Patriarch prayed [basically], "Forgive us our sin of division, and help us usher in a new period of ecumenism." People are hungry in China, too, grasping a hold of faith in spite of government retaliation.

It's about hope, really, and how we love others around us. Jesus talks a little about Heaven, but most of his ministry is about ushering in the Kingdom of God here on earth, where the hungry are fed, the poor clothed, where the wolves among us can lie down beside the lambs and we can have peace. This is what I think aches the pope so badly, that this is being undone by several people who have sworn their lives to ushering in this Kingdom. If we are Christians, and we are hoping to usher in this healing, are we scoffing at the Catholic Church or are we praying for them? Are we standing shoulder-to-shoulder and offering healing to the hurting, or are we paralyzed by our blame-throwing?