Ut Unum Sint

[drowsypassenger]

The recent passing of Brother Roger Schutz, founder of the ecumenical Christian
Taize community, has rekindled interest in a the funeral of another Christian

Comments

[mrmonadahl]

Wow, Sean. Interesting stuff. LJ needs more of this.

[rev_swiftbright]

Today's sermon in chapel was about Taize and Brother Roger ... we got a little crash course in his personal history and the history of the movement. I think you would have liked it ... it was a much better "your life is not your own" sermon than the one we're used to.

From the same NY Times article and from the sermon today I gathered that many different Protestant denominations and Roman Catholics have been communing together in Taize since the 1940's ... and evidently the Vatican has been vocally supportive. Makes me curious to find out more about their ecumenical model.

[drowsypassenger]

Do you mean communing sacramentally? Or living in community? I'd be really interested in learning more about the community, in either case

[rev_swiftbright]

Living in community, certainly, but also fully sharing the sacraments.

I know what you mean. It's almost unreal. How do they do it?

There's a first year MAR, possibly MDIV student here from the Lutheran Church in India who is really frustrated with what he's perceived as the lack of real ecumenism (in practice and in academics) here at the divinity school. Everyone keeps pointing out the diversity of the students and faculty and he just gets more and more frustrated saying, "That's not real ecumenism. That's being from different backgrounds around each other, not in conversation with each other."

At first, I was annoyed. Now, reflecting on the little bit I've learned about Taize, I'm starting to see his point. It is frustrating the way we limit our ecumenism and congratulate ourselves for accomplishing nothing ... especially in light of what the Taize community was able to do.