Taizé: A Call to Reconciliation
I have entitled this talk “Taizé and the call to Reconcilation” because “reconcilation” was Brother Roger's preferred term when it came to presenting the ecumencial vocation of the Taizé Community. He was interested in a reconciliation of Christians that could take place without delay and he felt that such a reconciliation was an indispensable prerequisite for Christians to have any credibility in the eyers of others.
Understood in this way, it becomes clear that the call to reconciliation cannot be a matter restricted to ecumenical experts as if “ecumenism” were a separate and isolated chapter in the life of the Church, as if the Church could be itself and correspond to God's call while remaining divided. Only a most wretched ecclesiology would view ecumenism as dispensable, reserved to experts who have time for such activities. For Brother Roger and for us today, working for reconciliation and trying to make the mystery of the church accessible to today's world, in particiular the new generations always went hand in hand. The same conviction motivates ud today.
It would be impossible to understand the vocation of Taizé without looking closely at the life of this founder, Brother Roger. In my presentation, I will be led to mix elements of Brother Roger story and more generally of Taizé's history with some theological reflection. It's really quite impossible to separate the two. The realization that certains paths of reconciliation were open occured through various encounters, conversations, meetings, friendships. Being attentive to the “events” of everyday life, attentive to “God's today”, has always been an intricate part of the life of Taizé and its development. It's possible to read the story of the Taizé Community as a way of being present to the the fault lines (“lignes de fractures”) of humanity.
From a young age
Even at a very young age, the need for reconciliation was impressed upon Brother Roger.
He was born 9 months after the beginning of the First World War. Though his birth took place in Switzerland, a country that remained neutral during the war, he became keenly aware of its nightmares through his maternal grandmother who lived in the North of France. A brave woman, she welcomed people fleeing the bombing, mothers with small children, others that were pregnant and terrified. Apparently she could hear “Big Bertha” from her home. A bomb actually fell in her garden, but fortunately did not explode. She was finally forced to leave the north of France onboard a train for cattle.
One of Brother Roger's oldest memories was the arrival of this remarkable grandmother in Switzerland. Exhausted by her efforts to welcome those in distress, she said: “No one must ever see again what I have seen. No what must ever again what I have been through”. And she added: “If Christians are reconcilied they can prevent the outbreak another war”.
She believed that reconciled Christians could play a major role in the future of Europe.
Brother Roger's grandmother was also profoundly interested in what could foster more political unity in the world. In this respect she followed closely the creation of the League of Nations in 1919, following the Treaty of Versailles. She saw the need for a world authority. (see text by Gaulué).
Why can't we be together?
The young boy Roger Schutz-Marsauche, the last of nine children, born in a Calvinist family, vividly remembered his first encounter with Christians of other denominations. He often spoke of his inability as a child to understand why, on a Sunday morning in his village, Christians all going to pray to God were heading in different directions and could not be together. He saw this as a contradiction with what is found in the Gospel. The child wondered: “How can we all speak of a God of love and not be together?”
As a student, the young Roger was aware of the inadequacy of words. Christians affirm things, but what they affirm so confidently rarely becomes visible in real life. At a young age already, he was aware of the importance of signs, living signs. Later he would speak of living “a parable of community” or “a parable or reconciliation”.
A Parable of Reconciliation
Last year I spent several months in Switzerland preparing for our annual European Meeting that took place in Geneva at the end of 2007. I was able to meet with several of Brother Roger's oldest friends. Some of them showed me letters they had from Brother Roger going to back to the 30's and early 40's. I was struck by how clearly in those early years Brother Roger envisioned the importance of the living parable. In one letter, written in 1944, when brother Roger was just 29 years old, he writes about his conviction that what will speak to people today, people who are often “gavés de paroles”, “stuffed with words” is a life, more specifically the life of a community.
This was already clear to Brother Roger when he arrived in the small village of Taizé, in Burgundy, 100 km north of Lyon, just 10 km away from the famous monastery of Cluny. Another war had just started. Brother Roger was seriously contemplatiing the creation of a community of men. A war-torn France was more attractive to the young Brother Roger that the safey of Switzerland because, as he often explained, a community should be rooted and built in a place where there are many challenges, where life is not easy. “La facilié empêche la création.” “When life is too easy, creation is stiffled.”
The First Years at Taizé
From 1940 to 1942 Brother Roger began welcomed Jewish refugees. In 1942 he himself was forced to flee after his activities were reported to the police. Had he stayed the story of Taizé would have probably ended on the 11th of November 1942, when the German armies invaded what had been up to that date “la zone libre”. On the very first day they came to Taizé to see if the could find Brother Roger.
The war was not quite over when Brother Roger returned to Taizé. He came back with three young students who had started to share his life and vision already in Geneva in 1942. When they arrived in Taizé in 1944, they began to live a community life, offering hospitality to the German soldiers who were now prisoners in the area in camps that were poorly organised.
We can see from this last example, that involves the welcome of German soldiers, how the vocation to reconciliation was already present at the beginning of the community, a reconciliation that was not limited to liturgy or dogma or the internal life of the churches. Throughout his life Brother Roger consistently saw the unity of Christians as a kind of “prerequisite” in order to be a leaven of reconciliation in the human family.
Some years laters, when a German organisation heard of what was being built at Taizé, they came to see the community to offer to build a church that would stand in France a sign of reconciliation. A Taizé brother who is an architect drew up plans for a church that was opened in 1962 and that bears the name “Church of Reconciliation.”
One of the great French protagonists for the reconciliation of Christians, Father Paul Couturier, visited Brother Roger in Taizé already in 1941. Maurice Villain, who just like Father Couturier spared no efforts to work for Christian Unity, accompanied him. It was Father Couturier who, during the war, when publishing was difficult, found the necessary paper to print Brother Roger's first booklet on Community life published in 1941.
Father Couturier was deeply aware that some of the reasons for separation are not always theological. They are what he called “psychological”, they have to do with a a long story of many hurts, wounds and rejection. That is why he was convinced that a community of prayer could play a role in healing some of these wounds.
First Contacts with Rome
Paul Couturier was instrumental in creating a relationshiop of trust with Cardinal Gerlier, archbishop of Lyon. It was Cardinal Gerlier who encouraged the brothers to go to Rome, as early as 1949, to explain their calling directly to the Pope. They did so and returned a year later.
Even if these first contacts with Rome did not produce many visible fruits, they were important for Taizé's future. In 1958, when Pope John XXIII was elected, Cardinal Gerlier once again urged the brothers to Rome to meet with the Pope right at the beginning of his pontificate. Brother Roger often spoke of Pope John's welcome, how he applauded the words they spoke and encouraged them to return to see him. It was not difficult to convince the brothers to do so. When asked who is the person who had the deepest influence on Taizé, Brother Roger would always answer without hesitation: “Pope John XXIII”.
Pope John had only been Pope for a very short time when the idea of bringing together a Council came to him. Pope John invited Brother Roger and another Taizé brother to be present in Rome for the Council. When it was about to open, Pope John spoke words that were to remain with Brother Roger for the rest of his life. He said: “We will not seek to find out who was right and who was wrong. We will simply say: “Let us be reconciled”.
Vatican II
The life of the Taizé community in Rome during the Vatican II has become part of the council's history. The brothers went each day to St. Peter's basilica, taking part in all four sessions of the Vatican II. Each day they would invite bishops and cardinals.
It was during the Council that Brother Roger developped close friendships with several bishops from South America. In the recently published correspondence of Dom Helder Camara there are many moving passages concerning their talks in Rome and at Taizé.
It was because of Dom Helder that Taizé brothers went to live in Brazil where they have now been for over 42 years. Other “fraternities” of brothers were created a few years later in Bangladesh, South Korea and Africa. These fraternities are meant to express another dimension of reconciliation, extending it to the entire human family, simply by sharing the life of the poor, being present among believers of other religions, creating bonds of friendship and trust.
Returning to the life in Rome during the Council, special mention should be made of a young Polish who came to share a meal with the brothers in their apartement. His name is Karol Woytila. Shortlty after the Council he visited Taizé wice and returned as Pope in 1986.
As the Council progressed, bishops would talk with each other about their visits to the Taizé brothers. Word got around that if you are invited by the Taizé brothers for a meal, it's better to eat first! It's true that money was scarce and that the meals were not always very plentiful.
Shorlty before his death, there was one last audience with Pope John XXIII. Brother Roger asked him: “What is the place of Taizé in the Church?” In reply, the Pope spoke of the Church as consituted by circles that are ever greater. He wanted the brothers to understand that, just as they were, they were part of it. Pope John's answer remained with Brother Roger forever. It took him many years to find words to express how this could be lived, but I will return to this later.
A Divided Europe
I cannot talk about the sixties without signalling another divide that appeared in 1961: the erecting of the Berlin wall. Europe was beign separated in two. A Taizé brother of German origin, who had himself been a prisoner in Russia during the second world war, approached Brother Roger about what could be done to express solidarity with Christians of Eastern Europe. Brother Roger encouraged him to travel to Eastern Europe. Soon this brother's journeys were followed by many others: various brothers of the community at Taizé, and also a number of young people who offered weeks or months to be at Taizé or to travel. These visits were uninterrupted from the sixties until the fall of the Berlin wall (and even to this day) and concerned nearly all the countries of Eastern Europe and what was then the USSR. For many of those who were sent to Eastern Europe, these contacts with Christians from Eastern Europe in times of persecution were life-changing. Brother Alois himself, our present Prior, was not yet a brother but was sent as a young person of 19 years old to what was then Czechoslovakia. When he first arrived at Taizé in the early seventies a brother was leaving that very same day for East Germany. He has said in various interviews how as a young German this totally surprised him. “Things are possible that I had not imagined to be possible.” He said of Brother Roger: “He went about things as if certain walls simply did not exist.”
No one imagined that these simple visits would develop into thousands and hundreds of thousands of friendships. The important thing was to lend support to the Christians of Eastern Europe, prevent any fatalistic tempation to believe that nothing could changed.
In the early 1980's it was possible to bring together several thousand young people in several cities East Germany. These gatherings were tolerated by the regime, even though it tried to intimidate participants, for example by photgraphing them as they entered the church. Similar gatherings were held in Poland, in Prague. In the Spring of 1989 it was possible to hold an East-West meeting which 20 000 people participants in the city of Pecs in southern Hungary.
A few months earlier the preparation for a larger European Meeting got off the ground in Poland. We began preparation under the communist goverment in Poland and finished it with the first Mazowiecki governement. 50, 000 young people took part in the Eurpean Meeting in Wroclaw, Poland. A year later, Prague welcomed 80, 000 participants.
In the early nineties Brother Roger sometimes spoke of the future of Europe and how forgiveness was necessary to make that future possible. It was not an invitation to settle for some “cheap reconciliation”, but to struggle with a reconcilied heart.
With the war in the Balkans in the early nineties it seemed urgent more than ever to make this message heard. Even during the war, brothers travelled to Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. Young people from the Balkans often took part in our European meetings. For many it was their first contact with
other young peope with whose country they were at war. Many could say, “I have never spoken before to a Croatian or I have never spoken to a Serb”.
The the President of the Supreme Court in Hungary, Pal Solt, addressed the young people who participated in our European meeting in Vienna in 1992, saying: “The challenge for you is not to pass on to the next generation the prejudices and hatred of the past.”
Helping others, in particular those who have suffered, to believe that “something new” is possible is vital in this regard.
Allowing Something New to Emerge
Forgiveness is what allows that “something new” to emerge. Sometimes only a small number of people are able to go in this direction.
Michal Camdessus wrote a few years ago: «We can affirm that it is above all the iniatives of reconciliation that have in the last few decades shaped the politial and social evolution of our continent. One thinks naturally of the French-German, of the German-Polish reconciliation, the reconciliation of the two Spains, and all of the worksites that have been opened for future reconciliations in the Balkans, in Eastern Europe, in Ireland, in the Basque country.... It's the actions of those who have preceded us, their acts of faith and hope that have allowed Europe to be what it is today.»[1]
What Michel Camdessus is referring to is actually a capacity to “anticipate”, which is a characteristic of those who live in hope and trust. I think this represents quite well an idea that Brother Roger cherished and that many young people have responded to. In this regard, I was very struck recently by the words of young girl from Belgium who is interviewed in the preparation video for the Brussels meeting. She says: “Trust is what makes it possible to create new things.”
What Christians have to offer society is perhaps of this nature.
We are a people of the “early morning” (John 20, 1), of the First Day as Justin wrote in the second century. In contrast, we can remember the words of Hegel when describing the role of philosophy : "the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk". The human sciences understand and analyse with hindsight. They are important in that respect and bring an indispensable contribution to the understanding of reality. But all of reality is not in the analysis of the past and its tendencies. Something new can emerge that can surprise, open unexpected ways for the future of a nation and perhaps in the case of Europe, of a continent. It can take some time before that which is new is integrated and acknowleges as part of what is real.
A Way of Reconciliation
It is in this context that I would like to say more about Taizé's ecumenical vocation.
In the sixties Catholic brothers were allowed to enter the community. The Community became more truly ecumenical. Today there are roughly 100 brothers from about thirty different countries.