From the Rector…
Several years ago, I served as a chaperone on a diocesan pilgrimage to Taizé in the Burgundy region of France, founded by Brother Roger. During World War II, Brother Roger helped Jews and others targeted by the Nazis escape occupied Europe. When the Gestapo sought to arrest him, he fled to Switzerland, where he continued his efforts until the war ended.
While in Switzerland, he developed a distinctive pattern of worship that transcended denominational lines—repetitive sung prayer, extended silence, and a deep simplicity that invited people into the presence of God. After the war, Brother Roger returned to France and established the Taizé Community, dedicating his life to healing and reconciliation. He was killed a few years ago during evening prayer, but the community continues its ministry of peace, welcoming thousands of young adults each year for weeklong gatherings grounded in common prayer and shared life.
After our week at Taizé, our group spent two days in Paris before returning home. Still buoyed by the depth of that spiritual experience, we wandered the city with a renewed awareness of Christianity and its imprint on the city. In the oldest parts of town, Stations of the Cross are still etched into the stonework of buildings. The great churches lift the eye heavenward, embodying the architects’ desire to point worshipers toward hope beyond the limits of ordinary life. Yet it was not the buildings that moved me most—it was the people.
One afternoon, as another chaperone and I shepherded our teens through the city, we stopped in a park for a snack. What we had was modest: bread, cheese, crackers, fruit. Each person shared what they had brought—a loaves-and-fishes moment—and someone commented that it felt like Eucharist.
When we finished, one of the youth noticed a homeless man nearby. Without prompting, he took a bottle of water and some of the remaining food in a napkin to share with him.
That is what the Eucharist does.
I have no illusion that the man in the park preferred food to money, or that he experienced that simple exchange as sacred. The act did not solve his hunger or change his circumstances in any lasting way. But in that moment, something holy happened—not because of what the man received, but because of how the young person had been changed.
The man was no longer invisible. He was seen. And in seeing him through the lens of Christ, the teenager responded—not out of obligation, but out of recognition. The Eucharist had schooled his vision. It had trained his heart.
That is the mysterious grace of sacrament. In baptism, we are claimed as Christ’s own forever. In the Eucharist, we are fed with Christ’s life again and again so that we may become what we receive. We are sent into the world not simply to believe something about Jesus, but to embody his self-giving love in small and great ways as the Spirit leads us.
In the end, this journey of faith is about learning to see as God sees and to love as God loves.
Christ is made known in the breaking of the bread—and in the lives that are broken open for the sake of the world.
Light and Life,
Candice+