Reclaim, Renew Your Life: Taizé for January

“Come and be with us Holy Spirit,” will be our prayer as we gather in January to mark a new year, new opportunities and new possibilities.

To reclaim something means to retrieve or recover a right relationship with something previously lost, given away or stolen. Now — at the dawn of a new year — is the time to reclaim your life.

Download a copy of the Worship Aid for the January Taize prayer service.

It will take perseverance and energy to renew yourself, so it is crucial that we learn how to stoke and fan the flames of enthusiasm. Our enthusiasm tank can be refilled, and we can do things to refill it, and we can do things to refill other people’s enthusiasm.

As we prepare for our January Taizé prayer experience, we need to ask: What do I need to do to renew myself?

The event will be live-streamed for our many friends who cannot be with us physically.

What is Taizé?

Taizé prayer is practiced throughout the world. It is a meditative candle-lit form of community prayer that includes simple chants sung repeatedly, silence and prayers of praise and intercession. In prayer, we enter the silence, stilling the mind, opening the heart, surrendering to the action of the Spirit ever molding us into the image of Christ. The candles used in the service symbolize the presence of the risen Christ, who conquered darkness and sin and offers new life to all humankind.

Taizé Prayer comes from an ecumenical, monastic community in France and has spread to numerous spots around the world.

From the depths of the human condition, a secret aspiration rises up. Today many are thirsting for the essential reality: an inner life, signs of the Invisible. Nothing is more conducive to communion with the living God than meditative common prayer. When the mystery of God becomes tangible through the simple beauty of symbols, when it is not smothered by too many words, then a common prayer awakens us to heaven’s joy on earth.

All the videos of our Taize prayer services are available here.

Photo 264783 / Empty Tank © Joseph Helfenberger | Dreamstime.com

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