Taizé At Trinity

Trinity’s Taizé service is offered every Wednesday evening at 7:30 in the Main Church.

TAIZÉ MEDITATION is a simple and beautiful service that offers the opportunity for quiet, personal meditation in the context of song and word. It is a time for reflection, for reconciliation, for centering and for prayer. As the twilight yields to night, the church is lit only by candles.

The form of meditation originated at the ecumenical monastery in Taizé, France founded in 1940. Its format has been adapted in diverse ways for use by various Christian denominations and non-Christian communities.

Trinity has been offering Taizé Meditation as one of our principal services since 2001. The service has drawn its own following, particularly from people who were not already associated either with Trinity or with the Episcopal Church. As offered at Trinity, the service concentrates on the broadly spiritual and is not limited to the language and metaphor of Christianity. The service consists of an introductory “Call,” which is followed by Prayers of the People, a contemporary translation from the Psalms, a contemporary Reading, the Lord’s Prayer from the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer and a Concluding Meditation. Throughout the service there are chants led by our cantor, Sandy Kameron, accompanied by Robert Gurney on the Piano. Michael Patterson is the Officiant for the service.

We have formed the COMMUNITY OF TAIZÉ AT TRINITY to enhance communication with the Taizé participants. Anyone wishing to be added to our Contact List should write to TaizeAtTrinity@sftrinity.org.

A Celebration of the Infinite

Wednesday, 30 January 2008

7:30 PM
The Call
You who have an eye for miracles, regard the bud now appearing on the bare branch of the fragile young tree.

It’s a mere dot, a nothing.

But already it’s a flower, already a fruit, already its own death and resurrection.

                                                                                    Diego Valeri

Chant … UBI CARITAS

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
(Where charity and love are, God is there)

Petitions of the Community

Chant between Verses of the Petitions … Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia !

Translation of Nan C. Merrill in
Psalms For Praying … An Invitation to Wholeness
Continuum Press, 2002

Psalm

Chant … Psalite Domino

Psalite Domino in voce psalmi
Cantate Domino canticum novum.

(Praise and sing to God a new song.)

Chant … Veni, Sancte Spiritus

Come, Holy Spirit
(Repeated while cantor sings verses)

Reading

A reading from Second Simplicity … the Inner Shape of Christianity by Bruno Barnhart.
My mind is always reaching forward; it flows forth like a spring, and its flowing breaks quickly into multiplicity, as water flowing between stones is broken into different moving surfaces, smoothnesses rounded and furrowed, splayed and woven, yet remains one water and one motion.  I have lived for many years and never seen the back of my mind.  Never have I entered within the spring, or descended into its beginnings, remaining there until the Other opened to me, until the ever-present Ground spoke my name.
I am.  I speak these words yet I am not their source, their ground; they find an uncertain resonance in me as they pass through my consciousness.  Now I wish to become still, and to enter into my ground.  This is precisely the country that is unknown to me; my very act of consciousness carries me beyond it, excludes me from it.  Yet this is my native country, my own ground.
We are strange creatures: strangers to the ground, not knowing where we stand.  Literally, we don’t know the first thing, don’t know ourselves, who we are.  Human consciousness, as we know it, may systematically exclude being truly conscious.
Shall we, with St. Augustine, call it “memory,” this back of the mind, this beginning, this ground?  Within me there is inscribed a memory of the beginning, through my life flows continually away from this beginning like the rivers that flowed forth from Paradise.
I think of this ground that is my source, and my ignorance itself begins to shine in its perfection.  The exclusion is perfect.  And there is no exclusion; the gate is open.  We learn not to know ourselves.  And then to know ourselves, without word or name, in faith.
I may become wholly a listening to that which issues from this ground, a listening finally to the issuing forth of my own being in purity at the lip of the source.
The ground is a sea, a silence; its surface is the door to another reality, an intensity, a depth.  Silent beneath all that happens, it contains the meanings; hidden silver, they shine here and there with a light that is interior to them, the single light that they are.
This intimate depth is not other than myself; why have I not come to know it?  Why have I no sooner felt its gravitation than I am moving away from it?  An ever-present graciousness is the brightness at the edges of my consciousness, the fabric of gentleness on which my consciousness is moving, creating and recreating its momentary pattern.  Everything comes forth from this ground and seeks to return to it; its solicitude surrounds us.

Second Simplicity, The Inner Shape of Christianity

by Bruno Barnhart, Paulist Press, 1999, pages 37-38

Silent Meditation  followed by the Veneration of the Cross

Chant … Adoramus Te Domine

    Nada te turbe, nada te espante.
    quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta.
    Nada te turbe, nada te espante: solo Dios basta.

            (Let nothing trouble or frighten you:
                         if you have God,  you lack nothing.
                                      God alone is enough.)

Chant … Adoramus Te Domine

   (Hum)  Adoramus te Domine.  
          (We adore you, Lord)

Chant … Dona Nobis Pacem

    Grant us Peace.

The Lord’s Prayer  ~  (New Zealand Book of Common Prayer)

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
Sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
Now and forever. 
                                                        Amen

Closing Meditation

A Closing Meditation by Kathleen McTigue

May the light around us guide our footsteps and hold us fast to the best and most righteous that we seek.
May the darkness around us nurture our dreams, and give us rest so that we can give ourselves to the work of our world.
Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move.
Blessings upon each of us, this night and evermore.

Chant … Surrexit Christus

Surrexit Christus, alleluia!
Cantate Domino, alleluia!

Chant … Seek Ye First

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and its righteousness;
             And all these things shall be added until you.
Alleluia!