The quieting, mystical experience of Taizé prayer.  Imagine:  silence, church lights dim, candles on the altar table and the floor and steps around it, flickering . . .  This is a Taizé prayer service.

“It is a time to rest in God, to let the words listened to and sung penetrate one’s being.”

This is an elegantly simple service: short chants,  repeated over and over in the dark, short Scripture readings or psalms.  And silence, at least 8 or 10 minutes, sometimes more. In 30-45 minutes, it’s over.
 
Taizé prayer is the creation of a monastic community in Taizé, France, founded in the 1940s by a Swiss man known as Brother Roger. The brothers there are celibates who emphasize service and ecumenicalism, particularly reconciliation between divided peoples and divided Christians. Brother Roger was especially interested in bringing Catholics and Protestants together.
 
Surprisingly, the Taizé community in France has also brought together young people - teens to 30-somethings - not the age that typically flocks to church, any church. But flock they do to the Taizé community, which claims 100,000 young pilgrims every year. They work, farm, cook, and pray together three times per day in the Taizé style.
 
“The simplicity of life seems to offer a refreshing change to young people who come from societies that are drowning in excess, where nothing ever stops, where there is no time to just be, and be together.”