In the service below, songs are embedded as links. When you click the song links, you may start with an advertisement. After a few seconds, you can click SKIP ADS. The advert will disappear, and the song clip will begin.

Cumnor Taizé Service November 1st 2020

 “The exchange with God becomes real for us in prayer: by his Holy Spirit, God comes to dwell within us. By his word and by the sacraments, Christ gives himself to us. In return, we can surrender everything to him.”

Brother Alois, Letter from Cochabamba, Bolivia. (Brother Alois is the current leader of the Taizé community)

                    

Song 1- Veni Sancte Spiritus

In Cumnor, we continue to offer these online meditations on the first Sunday evening of each month. Covid-19 prevents us from meeting in the church but we hope you find the songs and prayers from Taizé encouraging and uplifting. In these confusing and sometimes dark times, it is good to know that God has promised He will be with us until the end of time. The phrases that Jesus used with His disciples are carried through the Gospels to us as well..….‘Do not be afraid’…and …..’Peace be with you’.

Taizé services have the following key elements: a Bible reading, psalm, songs, collective prayers, the lighting of a candle, and silence for individual prayer and dialogue with God. 

You may like to light a candle, as  a symbol of Christ’s light reaching into the darkest shadows, to bring healing and joy…

Song 2 -Dans nos obscurités

Within our darkest night, you kindle the fire that never dies away….

Song 3 -La tenebre n’est point tenebre 

Our darkness is never darkness in your sight: the deepest night is clear as daylight

Psalm 139

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
    I awake, and I am still with you…..

Song 4- Bless the Lord

sung by Voirrey Carr

Bible reading 1

‘The Lord sent me to comfort all who mourn, to clothe them in festive garments instead of despondency.’

Isaiah 61:1-4

Song 5- Holy Spirit come to us

Bible Reading 2

Jesus said: Happy are the clear in heart: they shall see God. Happy are the peacemakers: they shall be called children of God.

Matthew 5:1-12

Silence….. 

‘For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.’  (Psalm 62:5)

Song 6- In the Lord I’ll be ever thankful

Song 7- In resurrectione tua

Let heaven and earth rejoice in your resurrection, O Christ

A Taizé blessing

Bless us, Christ; 
keep us in the spirit of the Beatitudes: joy, simplicity, mercy.
Amen.

Finally

You may like to watch the former Archbishop of York’s video and meet some of the young people of Yorkshire who visited Taizé in 2019