Brother Alois, who succeeded the charismatic founder of Taizé Br Roger, is visiting Ireland for the first time. According to one of the organisers of the event, Fr Damian McNeice, the visit comes in response to the huge volume of messages of condolence from Ireland which the French community received when Br Roger was stabbed to death in 2005.
He will be in Ireland from today, until Sunday morning, during which time he will participate in two evening prayer services, the first tonight at 8.00pm at the Pro Cathedral, hosted by Archbishop Martin; the second tomorrow (Saturday) night at 8.00pm at St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast.
Before the service at St Anne’s, at 6.15pm, Church of Ireland Bishop Harold Miller, and Catholic Bishop Anthony Farquhar together with Brother Alois and the brothers will lead a short pilgrimage from St Peter’s Cathedral, Falls Road, to St Anne’s Cathedral.
“This is a pilgrimage of trust,” Fr McNeice told ciNews. “As opposed to pedalling fear in the world, they are pedalling trust. I believe his trip here is also a recognition of the reconciliation that has occurred in Ireland.”
The last visit by a Taizé leader was Br Roger’s visit to Ireland in 1985.
Leaders from the different Church communities, including the Church of Ireland, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian, will be at the evening prayer at the Pro-Cathedral.
Brother Alois is Catholic, but the Taizé Community, located in Taizé, France, has over a hundred brothers, from many Church backgrounds and more than twenty-five countries. An Irish brother, Brother Donagh, will be among the brothers accompanying Br Alois.
The gatherings will include times of worship using the beautiful Taizé chants, so associated with the community, times of silence, and a vigil of the resurrection including a veneration of the cross, and the lighting of tapers, to symbolise the risen Christ.
In January 2008, and again last week, young volunteers living with the Taizé Community came to Dublin and Belfast and visited schools, colleges and universities to tell the young people about the “pilgrimage of trust” in preparation for the weekend’s services.
Since the 1960s the Taizé Community has welcomed successive generations of young people as visitors and pilgrims for intercontinental meetings of young adults.
By meeting other young people from around the world in a climate of openness and listening, participants discover a solid basis for being creators of trust and peace in a world wounded by divisions, violence and isolation.
Taizé does not organise a movement around the community, but instead, encourages each person to undertake a pilgrimage of trust on earth and to live out in their own situation what they have understood.
During the Easter holidays, over 8,000 young adults from all over Europe, including from different parts of Ireland, took part in the prayer of the Community and in the meetings led by the brothers in Taizé.
Brother Roger, the founder of Taizé, died on 16 August 2005, at the age of 90, killed during the evening prayer. Brother Alois (52), originally from Stuttgart, Germany, is now prior of the Community. Brother Roger had designated him, with the consent of the brothers, as his successor during the Community’s council in January 1998.
Over 40,000 young people took part in Taizé’s 30th annual European Meeting of Young Adults from December 28, 2007 to January 1, 2008 at the Swiss city of Geneva.
Further gatherings are planned in Nairobi, Kenya, from November 26 to 30, 2008 and in Brussels from December 29, 2008 to January 2, 2009.
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