Taize Prayer

We're on this spiritual path this year and one of the suggestions Gretchen made was to attend the monthly Taize prayer service at Mercy Center. It was so beautiful, I cannot even properly describe it. The church was all dark when we entered, only lit by candlelight. The cross was laying on the alter not on the wall. There were harps, violins, piano and elderly nuns chanting. The church filled up to it's capacity. Voices joined into the chanting along with the nuns.

I recalled when I was 7 and making my first communion. I sat in the darkened church, only lit by candlelight, I had just finished my first confession and sat in complete silence, protection and as close to God as I have ever been in my life. It was pouring rain outside and I never wanted to leave. Last night brought up that memory. As close to God as I can be.

In the middle of the session, everyone got in line and went up to lay their forehead on the cross to unburden their fears. Diane pushed me, go on, go up at the very beginning so I followed Gretchen and Joe but soon learned that every single person in the church must do this. It's not like communion where only some take communion. I felt that the entire congregation went up to the cross. As the line finally shortened, Diane tapped me and said, do you want to go up again? I thought, what? go up again? why? as only a good Catholic girl would say, right because we only take communion once but I knew that Diane needed moral support to do this so I went and when I got up there, I realized that in my first pass, I forgot Kyle. I sighed and said, oh yes Lord, that's why I'm here again. thank you.

The other thought I had was this - women get it. The Nuns didn't need the pomp and circumstance of a formal mass to worship, to prayer, just chanting, light and the Lord. And guess what? there were a lot of men in attendance.