Website of the Week: 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Meditative Singing
"Singing is one of the most essential elements of worship. Short songs, repeated again and again, give it a meditative character. Using just a few words they express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being. Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God. It allows everyone to take part in a time of prayer together and to remain together in attentive waiting on God, without having to fix the length of time too exactly.
"To open the gates of trust in God, nothing can replace the beauty of human voices united in song. These songs also sustain personal prayer. Through them, little by little, our being finds an inner unity in God. They can continue in the silence of our hearts when we are at work, speaking with others or resting. In this way prayer and daily life are united. They allow us to keep on praying even when we are unaware of it, in the silence of our hearts." (From the Taizé website).
Born out of the horrors of World War Two, Taizé in France is an ecumenical monastic community comprising over 100 brothers from Catholic and Protestant traditions. Today, over 100,000 young people—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and nonbelieving—make the pilgrimage to the hill in Taizé each year, gathering in the Church of Reconciliation three times a day, singing in English and French, German and Czech, Arabic and Polish, participating in this parable of communion with their song.
Listen here to an hour of meditative music from Taizé.
"To open the gates of trust in God, nothing can replace the beauty of human voices united in song. These songs also sustain personal prayer. Through them, little by little, our being finds an inner unity in God. They can continue in the silence of our hearts when we are at work, speaking with others or resting. In this way prayer and daily life are united. They allow us to keep on praying even when we are unaware of it, in the silence of our hearts." (From the Taizé website).
Born out of the horrors of World War Two, Taizé in France is an ecumenical monastic community comprising over 100 brothers from Catholic and Protestant traditions. Today, over 100,000 young people—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and nonbelieving—make the pilgrimage to the hill in Taizé each year, gathering in the Church of Reconciliation three times a day, singing in English and French, German and Czech, Arabic and Polish, participating in this parable of communion with their song.
Listen here to an hour of meditative music from Taizé.