CHAPTER 3: EUCHARIST IN ECUMENICAL MONASTERIES 101 In addition, fourthly, he was willing to revise his plans or customs due to changing circumstances. He coined this attitude or method “the dynamic of the provisional,” claiming that “those who live provisionally find their journey towards unity reinvigorated, since its biggest threat is for us to become selfsufficient, to confine ourselves with a treasure that we have discovered, for example a liturgy, and then to institute, for centuries, structures which soon foster isolation.”247 But he also insists that “what will have to disappear are, of course, the particularities of a family and not the things all have in common.”248 Brother Roger counts his own community’s rule and liturgy among these particularities when he says that both “are instruments which allow us to persevere in the hope for unity. To a certain extent, are they not provisional things, destined to disappear on the day visible unity is established?”249 Many decisions in the community’s life can be traced to this principle, most notably, the openness to host the young visitors that started flocking to Taizé in the 1960s. It was not easy for the community to find a way to engage with them amidst the social and political turmoil of 1968. They could not send them away, however. The current village of wooden barracks and the extensive camping grounds accommodating tens of thousands of youths annually are the direct result of that decision, fueled by faith in the power of the provisional. At the start of the same decade, the community’s iconic Church of Reconciliation was built (which I will describe later in detail since it is the scenery of the practice of Eucharistic sharing in Taizé). On the one hand, it was to accommodate the ever-growing flow of church leaders and other guests finding their way to Taizé. It was a remarkable project to erect such a vast church building at the edge of a tiny village in Burgundy’s countryside. On the other hand, however, Brother Roger was somewhat shocked when he first saw it, fearing that it would act like an anchor obstructing the maneuverability of the community – and thus contradicting the principle of the provisional. To his surprise, the building soon proved too small. The building also proved to be 247 Brother Roger, Dynamique du provisoire (Taizé: Les Presses de Taizé, 1965), 151. Original text in French: “Celui qui vit dans le provisoire voit sa marche vers l'unité réactivée, car la menace par excellence serait de nous suffire à nous-mêmes, de refermer la boucle sur un trésor découvert, sur une liturgie par example, et d'instituer alors, pour des siècles, des structures qui bien vite seraient facteurs d'isolement” (translation: FW). 248 Brother Roger, 152. Original text in French: “Ce qui devra disparaître, ce sont bien sûr les particularismes de la famille et non les données communes à tous” (translation: FW). 249 Brother Roger, 151. Original text in French: “(…) sont des instruments qui nous permettent de tenir dans l'espérance de l'unité. A certains égards, ne sont-elles pas des données provisoires, appelées à disparaître au jour de l'unité visible?” (translation: FW).
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