Taizé offers youth prayer, song, sharing

Ecumenical weekend immerses youth in peace, simplicity, Jesus' love

- WCR photo by Ramon Gonzalez Young people from various Christian faiths spent a recent retreat experiencing the simple beauty of the Taizé approach to faith and life

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

By choosing love and hope, young people can discover a space of freedom and overcome defeatism prevalent in our society, said a Taiz‚ brother.

"It's a choice we can make. We can choose to love and we can choose to hope."

Spiritual retreat

Brother Emile, one of more than 100 brothers from the Taiz‚ community in the south of Burgundy, France, led a retreat for about 60 people, many of them young people between 18 and 35, at St. Matthias Anglican Church in the city's west end Feb. 23-25.

Various Christian churches, including Catholic and Anglican, sponsored the ecumenical event.

The weekend also featured prayer and song, as well as sharing in small groups.

Speaking on a letter that Brother Alois, the superior of the Taiz‚ community, wrote from Calcutta earlier this year, Emile noted some people are so afraid of freedom, they don't want to make decisions by themselves.

They end up handing over their freedom to someone else, he said. They are afraid of failure, of making mistakes and of losing control. "Sometimes we are so paralyzed by our fears we don't see this freedom to choose."

Fight fear

Relationships can be a place of fear as well, the brother said. "We are afraid of being unlovable, of being rejected; so we tend to withdraw."

What to do? "We should allow God to see our fears and our anxieties that create a wall around us," Emile told his audience. "Instead of letting fear separate us from God, we can use it to cry out to God."

God gives us the Gospels and the Church so we use them to find that freedom to love and to hope. "The Church is a place where we come out of discouragement," Emile said. "The Church is a place of hope."

Jesus could have escaped and gone into hiding but he chose to love and to deal with the reality of his time - a reality of darkness and hatred.

"He chose to transform it, not in a magical way, but by his self-giving, by the gift of himself," he noted. At the Last Supper, Jesus' choice to love "opened a space of freedom for us. He overcame the obstacle of darkness by his choice to love."

In our lives, we cannot just copy Jesus, said Emile. "But we can receive that capacity to love that comes from God."

Leah Adams, a 23-year-old Lutheran, attended the Taiz‚ weekend on the recommendation of a friend who had visited the community in France.

Gentle, kind spirit

Adams said she was captivated by the "gentle, kind spirit of Brother Emile" and by the Taiz‚ prayers and chants, which are short, easy to follow and repetitive. "Being here fills me with peace and calm."

Fang Hu, 25, came from Calgary to the retreat with five of his friends. The Catholic young man attended because it's a good way to celebrate Lent, plus he would like to visit the Taiz‚ community one day.

"I like their simple lifestyle," he said. "Simple is good. I think we should follow this trend."

Taryn Parker, 28, a United Church member who works at the Ukrainian Village, said she attended because she wanted to spend a weekend close to God and away from the distractions of society.

It worked. "I find this very relaxing and calming," she said. "Here, all the distractions are pushed away."

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