Five years ago, August 16, 2005, during evening prayer, Brother Roger, founder and prior of the Taizé Community, was assassinated by a deranged woman. He had recently celebrated his ninetieth birthday.
Five years ago, August 16,
2005, during evening prayer, Brother Roger, founder and prior of the Taizé
Community, was assassinated by a deranged woman. He had recently celebrated his
ninetieth birthday.
Every year Taize
continues to bring together thousands of young people from all
over the world. During a meeting in the Church of Reconciliation
Brother Alois expressed his joy in these words: "What are the young people
who come to Taize looking for? Perhaps just to meet "a
community where kindness of heart and simplicity are at the centre of
everything." (Brother Roger "God can only love" p.40)
Brother Roger's spiritual influence still continues to spread: “Throughout the ages God has raised up holy men and women to serve as
models for all “...
“Throughout his life, Brother Roger followed the way of the Lamb: by his
gentleness and his humility, by his refusal of every act of human greatness, by
his decision never to speak ill of anyone, by his desire to carry in his own
heart the sufferings and the hopes of humanity. Few persons of our generation
have incarnated with such transparency the gentle and humble face of Jesus
Christ.” said Cardinal Kasper in an interview with
the Osservatore Romano August 15th 2008. And he added:
“Christian
unity was certainly one of the deepest desires of the prior of Taizé, just as
the division between Christians was for him a true source of pain and regret.
Brother Roger was a man of communion, who found it hard to tolerate any form of
antagonism or rivalry between persons or communities. When he spoke of
Christian unity and of his meetings with the representatives of different
Christian traditions, his look and his voice enabled you to understand with
what intensity of charity and hope he desired “all to be one”. The search for
unity was for him a kind of guideline in even the most concrete decisions of
each day: to welcome joyfully any action that could bring Christians of
different traditions closer, to avoid every word or act that could slow down
their reconciliation. He practiced that discernment with an attentiveness that
bordered on meticulousness. In the search for unity, however, Brother Roger was
not in a hurry or nervous. He understood God’s patience in the history of
salvation and in the history of the Church. (…) He was convinced that only an ecumenism
nourished by the Word of God and the celebration of the Eucharist, by prayer
and contemplation, would be able to bring together Christians in the unity
wished for by Jesus. It is in this area of spiritual ecumenism that I would
like to situate the important contribution of Brother Roger and the Taizé
Community”
What are the young
people who come to Taize looking for? Perhaps just to meet "a
community where kindness of heart and simplicity are at the centre of
everything." (Brother Roger
"God can only love" p.40)
