Ecumenism" "
50,000 youths from all over Europe will converge on Milan from 28 December to 1st January to participate in the 28th ecumenical meeting promoted by the Taizé community. Each will receive on his/her arrival an unfinished letter from frère Roger, the founder of the Taizé community. Frère Roger explains the community had begun to write the annual letter it was his custom to address to the young on the occasion of the annual year-end European youth meeting. On the afternoon before his tragic death, on 16 August, he called one of the brothers to dictate these words: “In proportion as our community creates in the human family possibilities to expand…”. And there he stopped; exhaustion prevented him from completing the sentence. “In some sense explains frère Alois, successor of frère Roger as prior of the community each young person in Milan will be called to complete it, opening himself/herself to the invitation it contains and trying to respond to it through his/her own life”. In preparation for Milan, Benedict XVI has also addressed, through Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a message to the young participants. “May the example of the founder of Taizé and the tireless witness of Pope John Paul II in favour of dialogue and peace among men encourage you to be, in turn, peacemakers!”, writes the Pope. “In a world weakened by numerous sources of tension and in our developed societies where new forms of violence are emerging that strike in particular at the young, the Pope invites you to be witnesses, with simplicity and with joy, to the Spirit of peace that dwells within us, thanks to the gift that the Lord Jesus made of himself, once and for all, on the Cross, for the love of everyone. For, as the Apostle Paul says, ‘he is our peace’ (Eph 2: 14) and he who invites us to forgiveness, sign of perfect love”. In his message the Pope pays “tribute” to the founder of Taizé, barbarously killed by a deranged woman this summer, on 16 August, on the very eve of World Youth Day in Cologne, and thanks him for promoting “these international meetings to instil a spirit of living brotherhood and peace in young Christians”. This year’s meeting will be held in the trade-fair grounds in Milan and will bring together young Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants from 42 different countries. All the bells of Milan and its environs will ring out on the evening of 28 December, at the start of the first prayer at the venue in Milan, as a sign of welcome for the young Europeans. Messages of good wishes have been sent not only by Benedict XVI, but also by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
