As many of you have read, I left police work in the City of Alexandria, Virginia, to discern my religious vocation and volunteer with the Brothers of Taizé in December 1994. (I previously shared about this in some detail in another blog post.) I had come to know them through young adult gatherings in the United States.
My first encounter was while escorting Mary Washington College students to the first ever, large Taizé gathering for young adults in the United States at the University of Dayton. Approximately eight thousand attended. As for me, I had only recently returned to the Church after years of wandering. I experienced a conversion of sorts, a deepening of faith. Or as a hero of mine, Jonathan Daniels, noted in his own life, my faith was synthesized during a time of great trial and loss. At that time, March of 1992, I reconnected with a campus minister I had known in college, and I began to volunteer with her ministry.
I had not heard of the brothers or Brother Roger before, but this trip and its many experiences of the Risen Christ and his Spirit, encountered through others, further redirected my life more radically in May 1992. I subsequently read many of Br. Roger’s books, other writings, and prayers. I prayed with their chants daily. Then, I came to finally visit their village in France in 1993 for a week of silence, and I was invited to come back by my “contact brother,” one who basically serves as a spiritual director for the week. As I shared before in yet another blog post, I thought – just maybe – my call might be with them. Brother Francois said, “We cannot know yet what the answer will be, but we have similar hearts. You must come.” I agreed.
Once back in France to volunteer, Br. Roger joined the male volunteers from all over the world and many denominations for supper when not traveling. I also had an invitation to join the younger brothers nightly for song practice where he always joined us when home in the village and would share news and insights. Among my private memories with him is a walk where he listened to my pain while a very beloved friend and mentor was facing death in the United States from cancer. I had spoken to her by phone for the last time the night before, and my spirit was greatly disturbed. He understood from his own life of sacrifice how hard it could be to find oneself in this beautiful village, surrounded by joyous people, and yet still carry one’s crosses. He uttered a phrase he shared often, “Taize’ is such a desert.”
I was in a desert once again twenty years ago today as I learned of his death at the hands of a person suffering mental illness during an evening prayer in Taizé. Kristine, my wife, had been with me for the Barcelona European Meeting in 2000, so she understood and shared my grief to some extent. Yet as signs of life went on around me, it was among the hardest things I ever experienced to be so far away from others whom I love also grieving deeply, the brothers I called friends and my fellow volunteers now at home in multiple countries or some having become brothers themselves. Meanwhile, so few around me even knew of him while I was so very deeply saddened. I felt somewhat alone.
Yet in the desert, God can make life still bloom. Letters, emails and prayers connected me with these friends and helped sustain and heal me. This remains a living sign of the communion of saints we share through the power of the Holy Spirit. My wife, my greatest gift from God, was an embodied sign of Christ’s love for me. The Spirit also groaned on my behalf carrying prayers that I had no words for. I recognized once again that I was never alone even if tears must come at times. Sometimes, the most beautiful of desert flowers can only come to life this way.
I learned a lot from Brother Roger, especially to trust God and move forward through the desert times. And as we walk, we pray, we sing to the glory of God, and seek to serve. This is just as Brother Roger sought to do throughout his own life, sometimes facing great dangers in order to love others, especially the vulnerable and those alone. Through his example, I also came to understand the Gospel ethic to love our enemies even if others do not approve or understand. It was just his way, and ultimately the Way of Jesus.
Br. Roger died in 2005, but I think of him, his commmunity, and my fellow volunteers daily. I carry them in my heart. I try to live for Christ and others as Brother Roger tried to live. While we might not always succeed, wherever we might fall short, I now truly believe love never fails. God will make the desert bloom as Isaiah foretold, both now and fully at the End of Time.
As I just wrote, Brother Roger, who I lived with and loved, was murdered twenty years ago on August 16, 2005. Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a Civil Rights martyr on the Episcopal liturgical calendar of saints, who I never met but came to know through my own attendance at the Virginia Military Institute and later study of his legacy, was murdered sixty years ago on August 20, 1965. Through curating a Facebook page in his honor, I’ve been blessed to become connected with members of the West family who he once lived with in Selma, his grand-niece, and other people and ministries inspired by his life. These two men are both remembered by the Church for their faith – how they lived – not for how they died. They both remain among the greatest influences upon my own life and the lives of many others. Their Christian witness ultimately helped change how I see myself, others, and the world, and especially how I see our Triune God who is ultimately only love as John the Evangelist plainly and all of scripture ultimately attests.
In a prayer shared on this anniversary of Brother Roger’s death back in 2023, the next prior (now retired from the role), Brother Alois, shared the following:
Christ Jesus, today we give you thanks for the life of Brother Roger. For so many people, he awakened trust in God. By his welcome and his listening, many people were encouraged to commit themselves and to take on responsibilities in the world and in the Church. In his footsteps, we would like to put into practice what we have understood of the Gospel, remembering that with you, Christ, who came for every human being, nothing can separate us from God’s love. (Quoted from a social media post by the Ecumenical Community of Taizé)
📷 Sabine Leutenegger
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