On a night when many churches are locked tight, the double doors of Ascension Catholic Church in Oak Park are open wide in welcome.
And, incredibly, for a Friday evening, literally hundreds of souls are streaming in, many of them arriving a full 45 minutes early. They fill pews and settle on steps near the altar. Others sit on the floor or lean against the massive pillars that support the arched and painted ceiling.
It’s the kind of overflow crowd that a big church might have on Christmas Eve or Easter morning.
The people, however, have not come for a special holiday celebration but for a nondenominational worship service that is remarkable not only for its growing popularity, but also for its monastic simplicity.
The service consists of repetitive prayers that the congregation sings or chants in unison like a mantra, scores of flickering candles–and 10 minutes of utter silence in a darkened sanctuary.
There is no priest or minister. There is no sermon. The collection plate is not passed. And there is no choir.
The service is called Taize, named after a town in France, where it got its start. It’s an ecumenical Christian service popular in Europe that is taking hold in the U.S., say followers, who pronounce it tae-ZAY.
A few years ago Taize was offered at only one or two Chicago-area churches, but today about a dozen area churches of varying denominations–generally Catholic, Episcopal or Lutheran–offer Taize services typically once or twice a month.
The service “allows you to rest in God’s presence. Not to be totally empty but in an awareness that God is really present and closer to you than your breath,” said David Anderson, the music director at Ascension, where the service has grown from 30 curious souls seven years ago to 500 to 800 today.
Regular Taize-goers say that Taize is a great antidote to hectic lives, a way to get centered, and that once you have experienced one service you will be hooked.
The ability to offer people a spiritual oasis is one reason Rev. Stephen Martz started offering Taize services at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in northwest suburban Elk Grove Village last year.
“We realized that there were a lot of people who are very deeply interested in exploring their spirituality but are fairly distrustful of churches,” he said. “Taize seemed to us like it would be a way to bridge that gap to some degree.”
Unlike some Taize services that attract hundreds of worshipers, the ones at St. Nicholas tend to be powerful for their intimacy. Typically, there are from 10 to 20 people at St. Nicholas’ Taize services, which are on first and third Wednesdays of the month.
“Clearly, Taize is beginning to make inroads (in the U.S.),” Martz said. “People seem to be craving something that is very simple and very soothing.”
Taize got its start in the Burgundy region of France at a mountainous monastery founded during the late 1940s by a Swiss monk named Brother Roger. The purpose was to unite Christian churches divided by world war.
For that reason, the prayers at the monastery are all sung in Latin at the thrice-daily services. By not using French or another modern European language, no one nationality–and therefore religion–is singled out.
That original goal of reconciliation among Christians, and even all nations, is the cornerstone of the Taize community and services today.
Each year thousands of pilgrims from all over the world flock to the monastery. They come for a few days or a week to attend services, go to Bible study, take a vow of silence. They pitch tents and roll out sleeping bags or stay in rudimentary bunk houses. They are assigned chores and help with cooking and cleaning. The community has been visited by religious leaders including Pope John Paul II and the Archbishop of Canterbury, among others.
One of those pilgrims was Chicagoan Elisabeth Trost, who visited about three years ago and still is in awe of the experience.
“I got a whole new appreciation for prayer. There’s a sense of being there in this huge place and all of these people praying . . . and to be a part of that . . . I felt like my faith really deepened,” said Trost, a member of the Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chicago’s Edgewater community, which holds its Taize services every third Friday.
“It had a huge effect on me,” said Trost, who said she wished she had stayed longer than just five days.
In this country, the hourlong service follows the same straightforward format that is used at the monastery.
The service is led by a cantor who starts the singing and then invites the congregation to join in. Most of the songs are in English, although some are in Latin, and they are easy to learn. If there are enough people, the songs might be sung in three-part rounds with different sections of the church taking the different parts.
Midway through the service, all of the congregants file to the front and place lighted candles in sand-filled containers around an altar that has been adorned with religious icons. The purpose of the icons is to offer a focus for the meditative silent prayer, modeled after a practice called “holy gazing” taken from Orthodox religions.
The candle lighting is followed by about 10 minutes of silence in an otherwise unlighted church in which the only sound in the room are the sniffles of those overwhelmed with feeling.
“All of these people praying in silence, moms holding little kids, it’s really lovely,” said Ascension’s Anderson.
Beautiful and moving as it is to many, however, a Taize service can be uncomfortable for first timers, especially energetic extroverts unused to being quiet or those unused to the presence of religious icons.
“That 5 to 10 minutes of silent prayer may be more awkward for some people, but (if they can get through that) I think it is a very meaningful time,” said Heidi Rodrick-Schnaath, pastor at St. Timothy Lutheran Church in west suburban Naperville.
She also likes the services because they give her the opportunity to worship with her family, a treat for a member of the clergy who spends much of her time in front of a congregation instead of sitting with it.
St. Nicholas parishioner Irene Wiren acknowledges that the first Taize service she attended was a bit of a challenge. A retired hospice nurse, she was used to being under pressure, and the period of silence seemed long.
That was a year ago. Now the services have become a big part of her life.
“No. 1, they are very peaceful. And the music is very restful, but upbeat,” she said.
“You can go in there stressed out, angry, upset, fidgety and you don’t come back that way.”
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