After the usual mid-winter slowdown the big meetings have begun again. Over the past two weeks, more than 3,000 young people have passed through Taizé, most of them young French and Portuguese students. The largest groups were from Toulouse, Saint Denis, north of Paris, and Lyon in France, Viseu and Santarem in Portugal. The bishops of Angers, Rodez and Saint-Denis also came along to accompany the young people. Other countries were also well represented, including the Czech Republic, Korea and the USA, with a group of thirty teenagers from New York.
On the first day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, January 18, a prayer was held in Taizé, in the Church of Reconciliation, in the presence of the Bishop of Autun and the reformed pastor of Chalon-sur-Saône. As this year the theme for the week was prepared by Christians from Brazil, two brothers who have spent time living there led a meeting on the life of the fraternity in Alagoinhas.
Two weeks later, at the end of the annual Community Council, the brothers spent a beautiful afternoon in Chalon-sur-Saône, with a prayer in one of the parishes of the town and a visit to the Muslim community. This meeting was particularly important after the tragic events of the beginning of the year in Paris - to experience the warm welcome of the Imam and other members of the community gathered there on that Saturday afternoon.