“It is just like a feast to see so many young
adults on the hill, in all their diversity. It gives us the
great hope that humanity at peace is possible.”
Brother Alois, during a meeting in the Church of Reconciliation
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Taize
A Brief Overview of Taize
The Taize service focuses on prayer and Christian
meditation. This form of worship is very popular with young people. Thousands of
young people from all over the world visit the Taize community in France each
year.
Taize has spawned a unique style of worship music that reflects the meditative nature of the service. The music emphasizes simple phrases, usually lines from Psalms or other pieces of scripture, repeated and sometimes also sung in canon. The repetition is intended to aid meditation and prayer.
In addition to offering a peaceful
setting for contemplative prayer, Taize incorporates reading of scripture
along with meditative singing
.
.
"Singing is one of the most
essential elements of worship. Short songs, repeated again and again, give
it a meditative character. Using just a few words they express a basic
reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over
many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being. Meditative
singing thus becomes a way of listening to God. It allows everyone to take
part in a time of prayer together and to remain together in attentive
waiting on God, without having to fix the length of time too exactly. To
open the gates of trust in God, nothing can replace the beauty of human
voices united in song." (Retrieved from
http://www.taize.fr/en_article338.html)
To find out more about Taize, please visit http://www.taize.fr/.
