In Memorium: Brother Roger

A friend e-mailed the La Monde article to me. Although my French is this side of nonexistent, I got the gist of the headline: Brother Roger, founder of the Taizé community in France, had been assassinated.

Here's the International Herald Tribune's article. As you'll see, Br Roger was attacked by a Romanian woman wielding a knife. Based on the articles I've read so far, the woman's motivation is unknown. At least one article has described the woman as deranged, but the Trib cites a French officer as saying she was not so deranged as to require psychiatric commitment.

The Taizé community is an ecumenical monastic order in Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy, France. Brother Roger founded the order in 1940. His original vision was that the community would be an oasis of peace and reconciliation. He sheltered Jews during Nazi Germany's occupation of France, then gave asylum to German soldiers following the war.

Coincidentally, Mother Susan had given a presentation on Brother Roger as the 11:00 sermon a couple of Sundays back. She talked about how he went to a lonely place in the woods outside the monastery to pray.

He was seeking a simpler more direct method of prayer. He began to sing a phrase, perhaps from the psalms, over and over again. The melody is similar to Gregorian chant. The repetition may remind one of the rosary's repitition, or of mantras from the East.

Brother Roger once wrote that, "Short chants, repeated over and over, emphasize the meditative quality of prayer. They express in a few words a basic truth which is quickly grasped by the mind and gradually penetrates into one's whole being."

The Taizé songbook states: "Song is one of the most essential elements of worship. Short chants, 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."

This prayer/song has attracted Christians of all denominations, primarily youth. Accounts of last night's attack report there were over 20,000 youth present in chapel when Br Roger was murdered.

I am part of a Taizé choir. Not all the music we sing is directly from the Taizé community. Some is inspired by the tradition. The effect is the same.

At a certain point of repitition, the words lose their meaning. The sound reverberates in the head, the thorax, throughout the cellular system. The sound goes beyond intellectual construct to experiential reality.

Music has been an intregal part of my spirituality from the time Grandmother H— put me in the children's choir. So, Taizé has been an extemely powerful and healing service for me.

I join with Archbishop Williams, Pope Benedict, the world's faithful, and all people of good will in mourning the loss of the man who led us to this form of prayer.

Times Obit