Easter Sunday

I vowed last year that I wouldn’t go to the Taizé Easter Sunday service. Not that it wasn’t a great service and to be honest the excitement when everyone chants out Easter greetings in their own language from around the church as the bells start to ring at the end of the service, is a most moving experience. What it was, was the crowds. Taizé is crowded throughout the summer starting from now, but it was so crowded last Easter, that, for the first time ever, I felt scared. The Red Cross had a heavy presence in the church, but by the time the service started, they could no longer move around, all the gangways were blocked, as well as the emergency exits and with everyone wafting candles, I just didn’t feel safe.

This year, we did go up to Taizé, but this time as tourists, to watch what goes on around and outside the church. Something you don’t see if you go to a service. We arrived “early” (9.30 for a 10.00 start) and the church was comfortably full when we walked in to look. As you can see from the photo above, there was little floor space, but it still felt safe. I moved from door to door to look inside, but when I got to the front of the church, I was confronted by

the door “guards”, who told me I couldn’t go in as it was full. They sent me and the others trying to get in, towards the back of the church, but by 09.40, all the doors had been closed and no one else could get in. This is the first time I have seen this, at last someone has come to their senses. It could have been the Red Cross who had laid down the law or some other health and safety body, but at last the church was not going to be dangerously overcrowded. But what do you do with the hundreds still outside?

The brothers had set up a large tent near the church - with icons and candles and screens, small benches and hymn sheets and candles, just like the church itself - for the overflow. Sadly the youngsters blocking the doors to the church, were not directing people to the tent until quite late on. It was left to people like me, to tell those wandering around looking lost, where to go. There were many young people who didn’t make their way to the tent, they probably felt they could squeeze in when the door guards went in to the service, but they were to be disappointed as the doors lock shut, only allowing people to exit not enter. There were also lots of locals who arrived too late to get in and they just turned around and went home, which was sad for them. There was probably only room for about 300 in the tent, which was not really enough for the number of people we saw walking around trying to get into the church, so maybe it was better that not everyone tried to get in.

By the time we left around the start of the service, the tent had filled up, but I do wonder what the atmosphere in there would be like, I also wondered how the Easter candle would enter the tent, but we didn’t stay to watch - maybe next year. The moral of the story is, if you want to get into the church and get anywhere near the front, nine thirty is already too late.

La Tuilerie Website

The World Is Full of Smelly Feet.

The name of a children’s hymn, with such delicious rhymes in it as “hold your nose and wash those toes” - all intended to engage children in the story and symbology of the Last Supper, where Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. Jesus' intention was to show that neither he, nor anyone else, is above such lowly tasks and so the Christian church, around the world, conducts feet washing services on Maundy Thursday to remember. Taizé is no different and as it was Maundy Thursday, I decided to go to their version of that service last night.

In preparation, I searched the Internet to see what a feet washing service was all about. In general a Bishop (or senior church official) washes the feet of twelve parishoners. I found useful tips on how to run a feet washing service: make sure you have the bowl of water and washing and drying cloths handy - makes sense; tell women not to wear stockings or tights - also logical, you don’t want a strip show. But then I came across one comment “For the people whose feet are being washed: Instruct them to come to the service with clean feet in clean footgear”. Excuse me? Are you saying to these people "the Bishop is going to wash your feet, but you can’t expect a man of his importance to be confronted by the reality of the task"? Well if the afore-mentioned bishop is not prepared to “hold his nose and wash those toes”, he shouldn’t engage in this sort of charade. But I digress.

Back to Taizé. I had expected Frère Alois (the main man) to be up at the altar and to see him wash the feet of 12 of the brothers. Well I was wrong. Firstly, Frère Alois may be the brother who assumes the tasks of co-ordination, of being the main focus to the outside world, but he is just one of them, the "primus inter pares" - a difficult concept for those of us who live in a hierarchical world. In any case, when it got to the feet washing part of the service, twelve brothers went up to collect their feet washing gear (Frère Alois among them) and they then split into four groups of three, one with a wash cloth, one with a bowl of water and one with a drying cloth and they then proceeded to wash the feet of the other brothers. Well, it wasn’t so much a washing, more a dab, dab, wipe, wipe. Maybe the brothers involved, either as washers or washees, felt a deep symbolism in the whole thing, but I hate to say it, it was rather lost on me. Maybe I was too concentrated on wanting to know if they had been told to wash their feet before-hand or not.

Having said that, going to a communion service on the evening that the Last Supper is celebrated, had a certain extra meaning that I hadn’t expected and certainly for those wanting to take part in the Easter services at Taizé, it is a much less overcrowded way to be involved than by going on Sunday.

Happy Easter everyone !

La Tuilerie Website