With the feasts of Ascension and Pentecost we reach the second great peak of the year in terms of numbers taking part in the meetings, with a great majority of those people coming from Germany. Several volunteers who will stay until the end of the summer have already arrived from India, Benin, Madagascar and Colombia. One week after the Orthodox churches celebrated Easter, a group from two Moscow parishes have also been here. The young people from the group led a workshop at the end of their time here entitled "Being Christian in Russia Today".
For the community the last few weeks have seen us losing Brother Jean-Pierre and coming to terms with his loss. A native of Switzerland, at 94 years old he was the oldest brother in the community.
And good news came in the form of the entry into the community of a young man from Tanzania, who is living with the brothers in the fraternity in Nairobi, Kenya. Brother Alois made the trip to Kenya to give him the brothers’ white prayer robe.
At Ascension Brother Alois was in Lourdes to take part in the "Diaconia 2013" gathering, organised by the Catholic church in France. The theme was solidarity with those who are poor, those excluded from society, and many of them were also able to take part themselves.
Elsewhere, on Friday and Saturday night, an all-night prayer vigil was taking place in Lyon, in preparation for the Inaugural Service of the new United Protestant Church of France. On Saturday morning, Brother Alois gave a word of send-off at the end of the service. The same evening, back in Taizé, he described it as the celebration of "a beautiful event: the unity of Lutheran and Calvinist-Reformed Christians" in France.
In march two volunteers spent two weeks travelling around England. They visited 18 schools and took part in evening prayer at the University of Bath. At the same time one of the brothers took part in evening prayers in various cities, as well as meeting chaplains and school teachers in Salisbury and Birmingham to talk about the trips to Taizé that they are preparing for the summer.
One of the brothers spent 10 days in California before going on for a two week visit to Canada: "The last stop on my journey was in Ottawa. In Sacred Heart Church, just next to the campus of the University of Ottawa, a prayer with Taizé songs is celebrated every month of the university year. [...] Several people from Canada, among them Native Canadians, are preparing to take part in the gathering on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota from 24th to 27th May 2013".
Brothers of the community will be present during the WYD in Brazil during the month of July. They will be in Curitiba during the "days in the dioceses" before the event itself where they will lead prayers for a mission week. In Rio de Janeiro, from Tuesday 23 until Friday 26 July, the brothers will welcome people and lead prayers throughout the afternoon at the Church of the Candelária (Praça Pio X – Centro. Metro : Uruguaiana). Brother Alois will be in Rio from 22 to 28 July.
In a sense, we are all weary and overburdened. In our depths lies hidden a poverty which, because it frightens us, oppresses us and drags us down. In the words of this passage, Christ welcomes us in our vulnerability and does not seem to be afraid of it. “Come to me,” he says, and later on he will say: “Let the little children come to me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like them” (Matthew 19:14).
If faith is a gift from God, why do we usually see it as the result of human effort? And where does this gift come from? Why do some people have it and others apparently not? This short writing attempts to answer these questions based on an investigation of the vocabulary of faith in the Bible. We discover that faith is first of all an attribute of God – God’s reliability, God’s faithfulness – that awakens in us a response of trust. It is both the unshakeable Rock and the act of building one’s house on that rock. And it is Jesus, the true and faithful Witness, who shows us both these dimensions of faith in exemplary fashion.
Everliving God, you send the Holy Spirit out through all creation and in the heart of each person. Through your Spirit you wish to bring all humans to you. It is the spirit which unites us all in one communion and who leads us to go beyond our limits in a way we could never hope for. And so from the depths of our being we say: Come, Holy Spirit.