Impatient to forgive ” “

I arrived at Taizé just after midday on 23 August. I had travelled from Geneva with Keith Clements, general secretary of the Conferences of the Churches of Europe. A light rain was falling. The brothers of the Community with tears in their eyes, but with great serenity, were carrying the body of Frère Roger, in his still open coffin, from the house to a marquee to enable people to pay their last respects to him. I felt welcomed: there were cardinals and bishops, leaders of the various churches and communities, the elderly sister of Frère Roger, friends and relatives, children and especially youth: they came in their thousands. The President of Germany arrived: he too sat down in a corner of the marquee for a dialogue with frère Alois, the new prior of Taizé. Anyone who wished to join in was offered lunch in the community. Everything was simple. Frère Roger was a tool of God to open a path of reconciliation in the Church. He generated a space of the Gospel on this hill and the young were drawn to it and flocked here from all over the world.The question about the mystery of his death will remain lodged in our heart. An act of violence interrupted the life of this elderly and frail brother, who dedicated his life to open a pathway of reconciliation and peace on earth. The event of his murder seems unreal. Does the ecumenical process of our time have a need for new germs that can only be born from the blood of martyrdom? Has his desire to conform his whole existence to the Gospel been made, by his death, more similar to the Son, to the Just One nailed to the cross by violence? Before the body of Frère Roger I had the clear perception that now ecumenism has a new protagonist in Heaven: to his intercession with the Father I entrust in particular the work of the third European Ecumenical Assembly that we are about to begin and that will end at Sibiu in Romania in September 2007.The liturgical celebration began in the great church of reconciliation. The first prayer was for Luminita Solcan, the woman who had put an end to Frère Roger’s life. God’s forgiveness was invoked for her, for “she knew not what she did”. This forgiveness is an extremely real event. This miracle of forgiveness is the newness of the Gospel that our world needs if it is to find the way of reconciliation and peace.Then the songs of Taizé were sung. As is the tradition here in Taizé, the Catholic Eucharist was celebrated, officiated by Cardinal Kasper. The biblical readings were entrusted to representatives of the Evangelical Churches. The Orthodox sang the prayers of obsequies with the hymn of the Resurrection. Different identities, but already united by a single Gospel. At the end of the mass only the brothers of the Community accompanied Frère Roger to the little cemetery in the village. It was an intimate family moment. The community is the real parable of trust generated by frère Roger.I had come to Taizé for the first time in 1974, the year of the council of youth. Those were the turbulent years of student unrest: there were some 40,000 of us who ascended the hill of Taizé to seek ways of changing the world. The Community bore witness to a non-violent and non-ideological way. Many years have gone by since then: the young have continued to come to the hill of Taizé or met together in the great European youth meetings promoted by Taizé to find the trust, love and illumination to be able to risk their life for something of value. In 1997 we invited Frère Roger to the European ecumenical assembly in Graz: the hope for the restoration of unity among Christians was born from spirituality and from the experience of living the Gospel. In 1999 I shared with him the three weeks of the special synod for Europe. He was present at the funeral of John Paul II. My generation has had the gift of individuals who indicated to us the way of God and who are now leaving us for Heaven: from Mother Teresa to Don Giussani, from Frère Roger to John Paul II. The responsibility of not squandering this heritage, of bearing witness to it with courage, now lies in our hands. Will the heritage of these great men and women be taken up by other inspiring leaders, or will it be resumed by an entire people that has become adult and mature in faith thanks to the charisms that God has given to the world through these witnesses? Will the people of Cologne be the mature heir of these gifts? Not only single wise men and saints, but a whole people of wise men and saints is the hope for our history.