January, 2006
Catholic Spirit - January, 2006
Praying the way to Christian unity
By Enedelia J. Obregón
Senior Correspondent
Prayer comes in many forms. Music and song are the ones chosen by a group of vocalists and musicians to pray for Christian unity.
The group is comprised of about a dozen members from different parishes in the Austin Diocese. They gather four times a year at St. Mary Cathedral for a Taizé prayer service.
Taizé is a meditative style of music and prayer — much of it chanted — that gets its name from a French village renowned for being the site of an international ecumenical community.
The ecumenical prayer service is open to people of all Christian denominations. The next service is scheduled for Jan. 13 at 8 p.m. at St. Mary Cathedral during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
At a recent service at the cathedral, about 30 people gathered on a Friday evening. Dozens of candles flickered on the altar. The people sat in silence, some with heads bowed, some with eyes closed.
The musicians and singers sat in the choir loft. The songs and music seemed to float down from the heavens.
Adria and Michael Dawidczik from St. William Parish in Round Rock were among those at the service.
“Coming together for Christian unity is important,” Adria said. “If we pray together maybe we can understand the differences between us.”
The Taizé service started four years ago after group member Pierre Rioux learned of a similar prayer service in San Antonio.
They chose to focus on Christian unity because they see it as a duty.
“We are called to pray for Christian unity,” Riou said, noting that the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism calls for such action. “That was the starting point for Catholics who want to play a greater role in the movement of the restoration of unity among Christians.”
The Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism also calls for shared prayer among all Christians at certain times, such as a national crisis. This type of prayer is “particularly recommended during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity…”
And why should the average Catholic care about that issue?
“It goes to the Gospel of John,” Riou said, explaining that Jesus prayed not only for his disciples but for “those who will believe in me through their words, so that they all may be one.”
Paul wrote in Corinthians that all are Christ’s body, and that there should be “no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.”
Even in Paul’s time, there were divisions among Christ’s followers that had to be addressed. The church is now divided into three major branches: Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant. Through the centuries, those three branches have splintered even further.
So perhaps it is fitting that a group of Catholics is using a style of prayer started by a Protestant monk to pray for Christian unity.
Its founder was a Swiss Protestant theologian named Brother Roger Schutz. In 1940, amid the carnage of World War II, Brother Roger founded the community dedicated to peace, reconciliation and kindness among Christians, with a particular emphasis on the needs of the poor and suffering.
Since the 1950s, Taizé has attracted thousands of young pilgrims from throughout the world for prayer and reflection.
Father Roger, who was murdered this August, was instrumental –– along with Pope John Paul II –– in initiating the Catholic Church’s World Youth Days.
Riou made the pilgrimage to Taizé when he was young, attending prayer services three times a day and spending time in meditation.
Although it is not a Catholic retreat center –– it’s ecumenical –– Riou found that it rekindled his Catholic faith.
“Being around other Christians who were not Catholic made me want to understand my Catholic faith better and why there are divisions among Christians,” he said.
After returning from Europe, he was active in the pro-life movement at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
“I got to know a lot of other Christians,” he said. “We discussed different theological issues and I continued being interested in learning about other Christian faiths. I think that’s part of the reason I have this desire to reconcile all Christians to be one again.”
The schisms that began so long ago need to be healed at different levels, he said: between individuals and with God.
Reconciliation will also allow Christians to do what Jesus asked his disciples to do, evangelize the world.
“All Christians are united in a sense through baptism,” Riou said. “We are all followers of Christ. But it’s difficult to evangelize because we are not speaking in one voice.”
Jay Young attended the Taizé European meeting in Lisbon in 2004 after joining the local music group in March 2003. There were 30,000 people at the event, mostly European Protestants.
“It’s very powerful,” Young said. “I sort of forgot about things that were bothering me.”
Julie Almaguer, a parishioner at St. Louis, is among the original Austin group members. She enjoys the contemplative and meditative nature of the songs.
“It helps quiet the chaos,” she said. “You can focus more on prayer.”
Prayer has the power to heal and bring reconciliation, she said.
“Who’s to say it’s not already happening as a result of our prayers,” she said on the topic of Christian unity. “We are there as his instruments.”
Riou said prayer is one way in which the entire church can participate in healing the rift among the different Christian denominations, as called for by the Council fathers in the 1960s.
The Decree on Ecumenism lists three levels of participation: dialogue, cooperation and prayer.
“Dialogue is primarily among theologians,” Riou said. “Cooperation can be done in social matters such as national disasters. And prayer everyone can do. But there can be no ecumenism without a change of heart. We need to be good Catholic Christians so we can be good examples of the ‘soul’ of the whole ecumenical movement.”
Information on the Taizé group and on ecumenical events is available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Taize-Austin or www.austinforjesus.com/content/1.
A city-wide prayer for Christian unity will be held Jan. 20 from 8 to 9 p.m. at St. Mary Cathedral in Austin. Join Austin-area Christians for contemplative prayer with music from Taizé, Scripture readings, and silent prayer. For more information, see websites above or call the Cathedral at (512) 476-6182.