Frère Roger

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Brother Roger of Taizé, 2003
Brother Roger of Taizé, 2003

Frère Roger (Brother Roger) (Provence, Switzerland, May 12, 1915 - Taizé, August 16, 2005), baptised Roger Louis Schütz-Marsauche, also known as Brother Roger, was the founder and prior of the Taizé Community, an ecumenical monastic community.

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[edit] Background

Roger was born the ninth and youngest child of Karl Ulrich Schütz, a Protestant pastor from Bachs in the Zürcher Unterland (Zürich Lowlands) in Switzerland, and his wife, Amélie Henriette Schütz-Marsauche, a French Protestant woman from Burgundy.

From 1937 to 1940, Roger studied Reformed theology in Strasbourg and Lausanne.

In 1940, he rode a bicycle from Geneva to Taizé, a small town near Mâcon, about 390 kilometres (240 miles) southeast of Paris. Taizé was then in unoccupied France, just beyond the line of demarcation to the zone occupied by German troops. For two years Brother Roger hid Jewish refugees before being forced to leave Taizé. In 1944, he returned to Taizé to found the Community, first as a small quasi-monastic community of men living together in poverty and celibacy.

Since the late 1950s, many thousands of young adults from many countries have found their way to Taizé to take part in weekly meetings of prayer and reflection. In addition, Taizé brothers make visits and lead meetings, large and small, in Africa, North and South America, Asia, and in Europe, as part of a “pilgrimage of trust on earth”.

The spiritual leader always kept a low profile, rarely giving interviews and refusing to permit any "cult" to grow up around himself. Prior to his death, he was due to give up his community functions because of his advanced age and ill-health which had seen him suffer from fatigue and often use a wheelchair.

Brother Roger was awarded the UNESCO prize for peace education in 1988 and wrote many books on prayer and reflection, asking young people to be confident in God and committed to their local church community and to humanity. He also wrote books about Christian spirituality and prayer, some together with Mother Teresa with whom he shared a cordial friendship.

[edit] Ecumenical ideals

Brother Roger, 1991.
Brother Roger, 1991.

All his life, Roger devoted himself to reconciling the different Christian churches. He especially addressed Christian youths. Part of his appeal may have been his dislike of formal preaching, while encouraging a spiritual quest as a common endeavor. During a Taizé gathering in Paris in 1995, he spoke to more than 100,000 young people who were sitting on the floor of an exhibition hall. "We have come here to search," he said, "or to go on searching through silence and prayer, to get in touch with our inner life. Christ always said, Do not worry, give yourself." [1]

From a Protestant background, Brother Roger undertook a step that was without precedent since the Reformation: entering progressively into a full communion with the faith of the Catholic Church without a “conversion” that would imply a break with his origins. In 1980, during a European Meeting in Rome, he said in St Peter’s Basilica in the presence of Pope John Paul II: “I have found my own identity as a Christian by reconciling within myself the faith of my origins with the mystery of the Catholic faith, without breaking fellowship with anyone.”

[edit] Death

Brother Roger was stabbed to death during the evening prayer service in Taizé on August 16, 2005 (by Luminiţa Ruxandra Solcan, a 36-year-old schizophrenic woman from Romania). His throat was cut, causing him to bleed to death within minutes. The assailant was immediately apprehended by members of the congregation and was placed in police custody.

His death, in full view of 2,500 horrified young pilgrims at the Church of the Reconciliation in Taizé, turned a man many already believed to be a saint into a martyr, even though there is no clear link between his faith and the crime.

The funeral took place on August 23, 2005. Horst Köhler, President of Germany, and Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior of France, were in attendance. Brother Roger's community and friends attended the liturgy in the vast monastery church at Taizé, while thousands more followed it on a huge screen in fields outside the church. Brother Roger's simple wooden coffin, a wooden icon lying upon it, was carried into the church by brothers.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Vatican's council for the unity of Christians, who concelebrated the Mass with four other priests of Taizé, said in a homily, "Yes, the springtime of ecumenism has flowered on the hill of Taizé." Beyond religious divisions, Brother Roger also abhorred the division between rich and poor. "Every form of injustice or neglect made him very sad," Cardinal Kasper said. Br. Roger's successor, Br. Alois prayed for forgiveness: "With Christ on the cross we say to you, Father, forgive her, she does not know what she did."

[edit] Successor

In 1998, Brother Roger had designated Brother Alois Löser, a 51-year-old German who had originally come to Taizé as a youth and became one of the brothers, as his successor. This was confirmed by the community and in January 2005, it was announced that Br. Alois would soon be taking Br. Roger's place as Prior of Taizé, but this had not yet occurred at the time of Brother Roger's death, when Br. Alois was attending the World Youth Day celebration in Cologne, Germany. Br. Alois became Prior shortly thereafter.

[edit] Publications

  • 1944, Introduction a la Vie Communautaire
  • 1953, La Regle de Taize
  • 1958, Vivre l’Aujourd’hui de Dieu / Living Today for God
  • 1962, L'unité, espérance de vie / Unity, life's hope
  • 1965, Dynamique du provisoire / The Power of the Provisional
  • 1968, Violence des pacifiques / Violent for Peace
  • 1971, Ta fête soit sans fin / Festival Without End, diary February 1969 - May 1970
  • 1973, Lutte et contemplation / Struggle and Contemplation, diary May 1970 - April 1972
  • 1976, Vivre l’inespéré / A Life We Never Dared Hope For, diary May 1972 - September 1974
  • 1979, Etonnement d’un amour / The Wonder of a Love, diary September 1974 - December 1976
  • 1980, Les Sources de Taizé / The Sources of Taizé
  • 1982, Fleurissent tes déserts / And Your Deserts Shall Flower
  • 1985, Passion d’une attente / A Heart that Trusts
  • 1988, Son amour est un feu / His Love is a Fire
  • 1989, Marie, Mère des Réconciliations / Mary, Mother Of Reconciliations (written together with Mother Teresa)
  • 1992, La prière, fraîcheur d’une source / Prayer: Seeking the Heart of God (written together with Mother Teresa)
  • 1995, En tout la paix du cœur / Peace of Heart in all Things
  • 2001, Dieu ne peut qu’aimer / God is Love Alone
  • 2005, Pressens-tu un bonheur ?

Editions, listed alphabetically, as found in the Library of Congress Catalog shortly after his death:

  • Afire with love : meditations on peace and unity. ISBN 0-8245-0474-7
  • Amour de tout amour : les sources de Taizé. (1990) ISBN 2-85040-107-2
  • Awakened from within : meditations on the Christian life. (1987) ISBN 0-385-23536-4
  • Dynamik des Vorläufigen. (1967) Translation of Dynamique du provisoire
  • Dynamique du proviso ire. (1965)
  • En tout la paix du Coeur (1995) ISBN 2-259-18389-1
  • Essential Writings. (2006) ISBN 978-157-075-6399
  • Étonnement d'un amour : journal. (1979- )
  • Festival (1973) a translation of Ta fête soit sans fin. ISBN 0-8164-2583-3
  • Fleurissent les déserts du coeur : journal, 5e volume, 1977-1979. (1982) ISBN 2-85040-006-8
  • Life from within : prayers. (1990) a Translation of: Aus dem Innern leben. ISBN 0-264-67214-3 and ISBN 0-664-25162-5
  • Living today for God. (1962) Originally published under the title Vivre l'Aujourd'hui de dieu.
  • Lutte et contemplation; journal 1970-1972. (1973)
  • No greater love : sources of Taizé. (1991) ISBN 0-8146-2029-9 and ISBN 0-264-67253-4
  • Parable of community : the rule and other basic texts of Taizé. (1980) ISBN 0-8164-2301-6
  • Passion d'une attente : journal, 6e volume, 1979-1981. (1985) ISBN 2-02-008948-3
  • Peace of heart in all things : meditations for each day of the year. (1996) ISBN 0-941050-96-3
  • The power of the provisional. (1969) Originally published as Dynamique du provisoire. ISBN 0-340-02544-1
  • Le Règle de Taizé. (1966)
  • Revelation, a Protestant view; the Dogmatic Constitution on divine revelation, a commentary / by Roger Schutz and Max Thurian. (1968)
  • The Rule of Taizé in French and in English. (1968) Translation of Le Règle de Taizé ISBN 0-8164-2564-7
  • The Rule of Taizé in French and in English. (1967) French title: Le Règle de Taizé
  • Struggle and contemplation; journal, 1970-2. (1974) Translation of Lutte et contemplation. ISBN 0-8164-2106-4
  • Struggle and contemplation : journal 1970-2. (1974) Translation of Lutte et contemplation. ISBN 0-281-02809-5
  • Ta fête soit sans fin. (1971)
  • Ta fête soit sans fin : journal 1969-1970. (1971)
  • Unanimité dans le pluralisme. (1966)
  • Unanimité dans le pluralisme. (1972)
  • Unanimity in pluralism. (1967)
  • Unity: man's tomorrow / by Roger Schutz (1962) Translation of L'unité, espérance de vie.
  • Violence des pacifiques. (1968)
  • Violent for peace. (1970) Translation of Violence des pacifiques. ISBN 0-664-24922-1
  • Violent for peace (1970) Translation of Violence des pacifiques. ISBN 0-232-51093-8
  • Vivre l'inespéré : journal 1972-1974. (1976)
  • Taizé: lieu de communion. (1972)
  • Mary, Mother of Reconciliations / by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Brother Roger of Taizé (1989) ISBN 0-8091-3063-7
  • Meditations on the way of the cross / by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Brother Roger of Taizé (1987) Translation of: Kreuzweg ISBN 0-8298-0585-0
  • Seeking the heart of God : reflections on prayer / Mother Teresa and Brother Roger (1993) Translated from the French. ISBN 0-06-068238-8

[edit] Awards and honours

[edit] External links

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