The image struck me as you don't often see hundreds of teenagers in the United States walking on their knees to lay their head upon a cross. But this happens at Taizé every Friday evening, all through the year.
Which brings us to another charism of Taizé.
In the last post I talked about how the "strategy" of Taizé is simply putting something beautiful before young people and letting that beauty pull them in. But I also hinted that something more is going on, and you see it in the Friday evening service at Taizé as the young people make their way to the cross on their knees.
That "something more" is mystery and reverence. Beauty captures your attention at Taizé, but that beauty is directing you toward something deeper, the Mystery that sits behind the liturgy. That mystery evokes a sense of reverence. And in response, we fall on our knees and prostrate ourselves.
The charism of Taizé is that they welcome young people into this experience of mystery and reverence. As you sing the lovely songs and sit in silence intimations of a deeper reality begin to pull at you and woo you. You sense that Something Holy is here, close-by. Some Hidden Reality is at hand. A Sacred Mystery hangs in the air.
When I look at young people in the United States they seem to be lacking this experience of reverence. Not the capacity for reverence, we all have the capacity, but the opportunity, season and space for reverence. Churches in the states try to do two things with young people: energy and relationship. By energy I mean contemporary worship services, with big sounds and emotional intensity. By relationships I mean trying to help young people connect with each other and with the church. Both of these things are great, and effective in their own way. Especially relationships. But young people, especially with social media, are connected relationally in all sorts of ways that makes the church just one among many opportunities to find relationships. Same goes with energy and excitement.
But what the church can do uniquely in the world is create a space to encounter mystery and reverence. There's not many spaces in our world where the holy and sacred can be experienced. Taizé understands this where most churches do not. At Taizé teens walk on their knees toward a cross. I doubt most teens in American churches have ever knelt, even once, in their life. Let alone walk on their knees for many yards toward something sacred. But that isn't because our young people lack the need, ache or hunger for the sacred. We've just never put before them something that would make them want to fall on their knees. We're too busy entertaining or "relating" to them.
Our young people live in a reverence-impoverished and mystery-scarce world, and the church does little to fill that void. That Taizé fills this void is a part of their spiritual gift.
