My dating path

The year I turned 16, I discovered Taizé with my Lutheran parish. I am German.

How can we express the fascination felt then? I see myself again the first evening with friends, tired from the trip, late for prayer. We giggle before we can fall silent. To hide our emotion perhaps, in front of the silent assembly. Then the songs, the voices of the brothers… I don’t understand the words of the antiphon “Beati voi poveri” (Blessed are you, the poor), but they haunt me. I also like the many meetings of young people from all over the world. A Spanish woman asks me: “When do you feel God in your life?” What to answer? His question stays with me now.

In June 2021, learning of my failure at the baccalaureate, I immediately bought a bus ticket to Taizé. I need to rediscover this atmosphere of simplicity, of truth, which carries prayer. Meeting new people is easy for me; to say in words my faith, that’s something else. But, from stay to stay in Taizé – I’ve done a good dozen – the exchanges nourish me. My prayer becomes personal. I insert in the Our Father what concerns me: the food received this day (“give us our bread”), the evil that affected me (“deliver us!”)… Something is ripening.

Last September, rather than starting work, I joined the preparation team for the European Meeting1 in Paris (brothers, sisters, volunteers). One afternoon, in the street, I saw a girl in tears. I approach him and ask him in English: “Hello! Are you OK?” “I just broke up with my boyfriend…” she replies. I take her in my arms. It turns out that Alice (2) is English. I explain to him what I do in Paris. She asks, “Did you have a powerful moment when you started to believe?” I find myself recalling many moments when I felt God’s love, then I return the question to her: “It’s crazy, you approached me at the precise moment when I was thanking God for having been freed,” she wonders. I haven’t prayed in a long time! » While Alice, with a troubled heart, searched for answers, I passed by with a calm heart. Was it not the Spirit who made us meet?

1) It took place in Paris and Île-de-France from December 28, 2025 to January 1, 2026.

2) The first name has been changed.