Taizé Leader Proposes New Year's Resolutions

What we are called to is to love more. And since love requires our entire being to express itself, it is up to us to find ways of being attentive to our neighbor, and to do so without waiting a moment longer.

NAIROBI, Kenya (Zenit) - The leader of the Taizé Community says taking responsibility for the things that shape a person, even when they have not been chosen, results in true freedom.

This was one of the counsels Brother Alois Loser gave in a letter for 2009, which he wrote during a meeting last month in Kenya. The letter was made public during the young adult European meeting held in Brussels this week.

From Kenya's meeting focused on building fraternity, Brother Alois wrote: "In the face of the weariness and helplessness that many people feel, the question arises: What is the source from which we draw life?"

And he suggested, "Many more people than in the past are unable to find this source. Even the name of God is fraught with misunderstandings or else is completely forgotten. Could there be a link between the disappearance of faith and the loss of a zest for life?

"How can we clear away whatever it is that obstructs the source? Surely by being attentive to the presence of God. There we can draw hope and joy. Then the source begins to flow once more and our life becomes meaningful."

God's yes

The Taizé president said that after the resurrection of Christ, "we can no longer despair of the world or of ourselves" because by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, "God says yes to what we are."

"So let us consent to what we are or what we are not; let us even take responsibility for all we have not chosen but which makes us who we are," he urged. "Let us dare to be creative even with what is not perfect. And we will find freedom. Even when overburdened, we will receive our life as a gift and each day as God's today."

The religious went on to explain that the desire for the absolute, and the consequent thirst for love in the human person -- even when felt as a lack or emptiness -- are gifts, because they "contain within them God's call to open ourselves."

"So," he said, "each person is invited to ask themselves: What steps forward am I asked to take now? It is not necessarily a matter of 'doing more.' What we are called to is to love more. And since love requires our entire being to express itself, it is up to us to find ways of being attentive to our neighbor, and to do so without waiting a moment longer.

Free Catholic PDF's - Home / Parish / School / Bulletin Inserts

"What little we can do, we must do."