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Regular Prayers in India Past Events in India

Taizé and India

Some background to contacts between Taizé and India

Exchanges between Taizé and India go back many years: with Taizé brothers and young volunteers going to India and young Indians going to Taizé.

It was after the first Taizé meeting in Madras in 1985 that groups of young people from the sub continent started arriving in Taizé. They come from all parts of the Indian Union and they reflect the diversity of the cultures represented in this vast country. Catholics, Orthodox, Church of South India, Church of North India, Martoma, Lutherans and Baptists, they are chosen by their local churches or by Indian youth movements to spend the duration of a three month visa in Taizé. Taking part in the international meetings and sharing in the responsibility for the daily running of these meetings, their presence in Taizé is above all to share with the young people from many countries how the faith is lived at home in India, with the challenges and the questions that that represents at the present time of great changes in Indian society.

In Taizé

Commenting on his time in Taizé, a former national secretary of AICUF (All India Catholic University Federation) writes, “I think my discovery in Taizé was silence. Every day, during each of the three times of prayer, morning, noon and evening, there is quite a long time of silence. During the first week, I did not know what to think of it or what to do with it. So I spent most of the time thinking about something else! But gradually I discovered that this was an important time for me to think and to reflect about my life, about where I am here in this world.”

Eddie Edezhath writes: “Every year some youth leaders from the ‘Jesus Youth’ movement visit the community and live there for a few months. It is a time of refreshment and deepening for them. They come back with a new light and fresh enthusiasm, and in turn contribute much to the life of this fellowship.”