Pilgrimage, Peace & Presence: A Conversation with Brother Emile from the Taizé Community

In this episode of Breathe In Place, host Montague Williams is joined by Brother Emile from the Taizé monastic community in France, a place known around the world for its rhythms of prayer, simplicity, and reconciliation.

Together, they explore what it means to cultivate peace—within ourselves, in a divided society, and within the Church. Brother Emile reflects on how an inner life rooted in God can shape the way we engage with others, inviting us into deeper unity, compassion, and understanding. The conversation also considers how practicing presence can become a quiet but powerful response to the noise and fragmentation of today’s world.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome back to Breathe in Place, a podcast about how the practice of pilgrimage can help young people find purpose, resilience, hope, and meaning in a complex and confusing world. I'm your host, Montego Williams. Today's episode is a little different, but in the best way. We're joined by Brother Emile from Tizé, a Christian monastic community in France known around the world for its simple way of life, and especially for its unique style of prayer gatherings with meditative music. It is also a place that draws thousands of people from around the world every year who comes seeking a slower rhythm, intentional prayer life, and a sense of community centered in peace, unity, and justice. Brother Emil is someone who really embodies the life of peace that is so characteristic of the Teze community. He's incredibly soft-spoken, and there's a kind of calm he brings into the room, a sense of presence that feels rare. In this conversation, we explore what it means to be present with God, to seek a deep inner peace, and to live out those values in our communities. We begin with some history of Tize and then move into a deeper conversation about how peace, unity, and justice are related to pilgrimage. Like I said earlier, Brother Emil is very soft-spoken, so this episode invites you to a more patient listen than usual. There is a depth that unfolds slowly, which, if you let it, it can feel like a refreshing gift amidst today's fast-paced climate. You may even hear some singing somewhere in this episode. To prepare for this listen, take a deep breath. Here's my conversation with Brother Emil. All right. And brother Emil is on a tour throughout the United States and Canada and took some time to jump in the studio with us here at the Pilgrimage Innovation Hub. And we are excited to have this conversation. I think one of the most interesting things about Taze is that it seems like a lot of people know a lot about it. And at the same time, it kind of has a mysterious sort of identity in people's lives. People don't often talk about it. They can, they claim familiarity, but I haven't heard a ton of detail from the people who are so familiar. So let me just put it this way: I want us to have this conversation in a way that begins with the assumption that listeners have no idea what this is. I mean, some do. If you're tapped into a pilgrimage podcast, you have some idea. But I want to begin with hey, your idea might be correct, it might be wrong. At the very least, we're interested and we want to start from the top. So, Brother Emile, first of all, thank you for being here. Thank you. And um, how have your travels been so far?

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Pretty good. It's been a month now. I've been traveling for a month and I still have two weeks to go.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Okay. Are you excited to get back home or are you feeling like you're gonna miss this place?

SPEAKER_03 4:33

Um I actually am really happy with my travels. And so I I I can't say that uh that I'm in a hurry to get back, but uh but once you're back, you kind of appreciate the calm. Tizay is a in a very calm area of France, very peaceful area of France. And so I I I take advantage of being here, this beautiful part of the country. Also, when you can go for a walk, as I did last night, you'll you recover a little bit from the travels. It's important, it's important to take time just to be and to walk.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Now you said that Tize is calm. And I have to say, anybody who encounters you would have to notice that you are very calm. You bring calm to the places you step into. Did Taze do this to you? Or did they check you out before you came and said, Are you calm enough to be a part of us? How did this work?

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Well, that's a good question. I'm I'm I'm not so sure about how calm I am always, but uh but of course, when you live in a community that prays three times a day, um where you search for peace of heart, that was a great theme of our founder, Brother Roger. Um, when he came to Tizé, he believed that he wanted to say a prayer every day that had to do with living in the spirit of the Beatitudes, joy, simplicity, mercy. And he was always seeking that inner peace. That was the part of the introduction to that prayer about joy, simplicity, mercy was in all things seek that inner peace that Christ gives. And so it's part of our life, I think, to seek it. It doesn't mean we live in it permanently, but we seek it. And and in the seeking, in the seeking, there is peace, I think.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Aaron Ross Powell Now, uh Brother Roger. Yes. Yeah. Brother Roger. When he started this, it was was it during World War II?

SPEAKER_03 6:17

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. It was the very beginning of World War II. He was born in Switzerland. Uh he could have stayed in a neutral country, Switzerland wasn't engaged in the war. But when he started to think about community life, that's what Tez is, it's a community. He said, communities shouldn't start where life is too easy. Community should have to face a challenge. And so he said, I'm going to France. France, there are refugees. There are people in need of finding people who can hide them, the Jews in particular. And so he left on his bicycle, left Switzerland, and started looking for a house to buy in France. And he found a house in this tiny village in Burgundy. Uh so you would say maybe the beginning of the southeast of France, not quite the south, but central east France. Um the closest city would be you it's easy for you Americans because you have Make in Georgia with Macon is the same n spelling M-A-C-O-N. It's just fifteen, twenty miles from Tezée. And uh he saw a house for sale and he went and he he bought it in 1940 and started to hide people during the war and uh and was forced to leave uh in 42. Uh the Gestapo uh found out uh what was happening at Tezée the part of France where he was in was the beginning of the South, so it was free until 42. But in November 42, the German army invaded the rest of France, and so he was fortunately away from Tezée when they arrived and uh was told by friends not to come back. Otherwise it would have been the end of Taizé. 42 would have been the end, been arrested, probably finished in the camps, but he he came back only in 44. And after the war, he noticed that there were the the German army had been defeated already in the area, and there were prisoner camps where the German soldiers were prisoners. And he asked if he could welcome them. He had uh compassion a little bit on these very young men, you know, very young men were drafted and 16, 17 years old, sometimes others were fathers and uh suffering, and the camps were not properly organized. One one person was killed, stoned by the local population. He was a priest, actually. He was a Franciscan priest stoned by the local population. So Brother Roger asked if he could welcome them on Sundays uh for a meal, and and he often told me the story how he had to bribe the guards a little bit to give them extra food also so that they would allow the prisoners to come. And and so the the theme of reconciliation's always been at the heart of Desai, you know, welcoming.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Okay. So there's peace, there's reconciliation. It's really interesting that to find peace and to foster a community of peace, he moved into an area of war.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Yeah.

unknown 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

It's true. It's true. It's not a peace where you run away from reality, but it's a peace where that calls you to be present where there is suffering. And then so um I think it's a it's quite true with the person of Jesus also, no? He sends us into he says, I send you as lambs among the wolves, uh. And we we go we're called not to escape from reality. And Brother Roger in French he had this great, great sentence that says, Non pas fuir, mais acourir, not to run away from, but to run towards, to run towards the challenges. And faith gives us that momentum, that inner momentum to go towards challenges, not to run away.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

What do you think is the connection or intersection between the inner peace of a person and their presence, being a peaceful presence and peace in a in society?

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Well, I think you're that question you're going right at the heart of to say, I think Brother Roger felt not just individuals who have inner peace, but if communities of Christians, if churches are living as reconciled communities, then they can be a leaven of peace in the human in the human family. That was part of the heart, very heart of his intuition that because Brother Roger had uh known a lot about the First World War, his grandmother was uh in the north of France. Uh part of the family was French. His grandmother was in the north of France during the First World War. And after the war, she said the armies that were fighting each other, the German army, the French army, most of those people were Christian. If they had been reconciled, that would not have happened. If there had not been division amongst Christians, we would have had a leaven of peace in the human family. And so she was from the very, very old Protestant family, going right back to the beginning of the Reformation. And she felt called to pray regularly with Catholics to go and see. She wanted to live this inner reconciliation in her own life. And Brother Roger was very influenced by that grandmother.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

And to Zay is an ecumenical ministry. That's right. It's an ecumenical community. How does that work? You know, people come from different denominational backgrounds, commitments. Uh and sometimes these differences can be, you know, pretty intense. How do you foster, how does to Zay foster community across those lines of difference?

SPEAKER_03 11:23

When Brother Roger came, there was certainly an awareness, maybe a painful awareness also of the contradiction of division amongst Christians. Jesus prayed that they be one and we are living separate. We talk about love, but wait, we're not together. And so he didn't have a strategy how that could be resolved, but he he wanted to search for ways of being reconciled. And he probably realized that academic work wasn't enough. You don't just bring theologians together to discuss theological differences, but you have to get to know each other. And as you get to know each other, you realize the prejudice that you have sometimes towards another denomination. You don't you know a stereotype of that denomination, you don't really know what they're about. And then you discover that they love Christ as well. It's an expression that that we've used in the last few years, all those who love Christ. And you realize that lots of people love Christ in different ways. And uh but once we get into theology is has a great value. Great value. Uh academic work has a great value. But but sometimes the problems are are are not limited to theological differences. There's in France, for example, the Protestant church, which is fairly small, suffered a lot from the the King's army, Louis XIV, and some of the people were dragged away, their children were dragged away, put into convents, tried to force them to reconvert to to Catholicism. And so that leaves a mark, no, it leaves wounds. And so it's hard to be Protestant. It was hard, it's changing now, but it was hard to be Protestant without being anti-Catholic. And uh and so in order to overcome that, you you need to form friendships. You need to get to know people, you need to think not so much in terms of the past, but maybe what God is doing today, God is reconciling his people, God is bringing people together. And so nothing can replace experience, I think experience of friendship, experience of community. And that's what Brother Roger felt when he started to say it. It's gonna be about prayer, it's gonna be about community life, it's gonna be about friendship. And I think that's how we became an ecumenical community. Uh he didn't neglect the institutional part. Um he had contact with church leaders uh right from the beginning of many different denominations. But Brother Roger was quite good at creating trust. Uh there was some opposition at the time. So there were when you start an ecumenical community, you create some worry also, you know, saying, you know, ah, you're not Catholic enough, or you're not Protestant enough, or you're you're caught in between. There's no comfortable position. Once you've tried to seek reconciliation, you you're no longer in a comfortable position. So it's easier to take sides. And so Brother Roger was had to persevere, had to persevere and confronted with opposition sometimes. But he also met great church leaders who encouraged him to continue.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

And at the Eucharist is an open table. So Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox all can participate in Eucharist together.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

So there's no the churches remain divided, no, on the question of the Eucharist. So we don't have a perfect solution at Tizé, but for as a way towards reconciliation, Brother Roger tried to say, but every church has a gift. Every church has a gift. And in order to be the church, we need all the gifts. And so um theologians would speak of Catholicity not as a denomination, no, but but in literally in Greek, no, Kath olon means according to the totality. It's not just universal, it's not just the geographical ext extension of the church all over the world, but it's that we are basically the church is not a sect. It's not a sect, it's interested in everything that is human. It's interested in the whole cosmos. And when we neglect that, then there's the danger of being sectarian. No, there's the danger of thinking just in denominational terms. And but the mystery of Christ is connected, as St. Paul says, no, to the entire universe, the entire cosmos. He's he's the Lord of the entire world. And so the Catholicity of the church is also all the gifts that God has placed in his people, whatever denomination. And so ecumenism, what we call ecumenism, the search for visible unity among Christians, is not a kind of diplomatic adventure where you say, no, you let go of this, I'll let go of that. It's not a negotiation. It's more a search for fullness. A search for fullness by by realizing this church has really kept a particular gift that we need, that we need in order to be the church. And an example I could give would be, for example, in churches of the Reformation, with the centrality of the Word of God. Justification by faith, not by works with a great sense of grace, that everything is grace, everything is God's gift. That's very central to the Reformation. Luther said the entire Reformation hangs, you know, it depends on that that belief in justification by faith and encouraging people to really read the Word of God. Today that gift to a large extent has entered the Catholic Church. Seventy years ago, if you saw someone walking around with a Bible, you would say, ah, he's from a Protestant church. But today that's no longer the case. So so acutism can be seen as a kind of exchange of gifts.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Okay. And in some ways, in a uh sharing practices, allowing each other to make space for each other to engage Christian faith across those lines. Yeah. So at Tuzai on a Sunday morning, Eucharist is part of the gathering. Yeah. So we have people from many different churches every week.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Every week you mentioned uh Orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians from different rites of different many different Protestant churches. And so we try to accommodate people. We don't have there's no perfect solution. No, we just try to make sure that everyone feels welcomed as they are. And so there might be a big Anglican group, a big Episcopalian group, a big Lutheran group from Sweden, for example. We get lots of Swedes who come. And we will offer if they like, if they wish, they'll offer to they can celebrate uh a Protestant Eucharist in the village church. Often on Saturday evening, we'll have a uh Lutheran Eucharist or an Anglican Eucharist. Uh Some churches don't want that. They don't want to have a particular Eucharist just for their church. No, they they prefer to participate in but we offer it just so that they feel comfortable and welcomed. And on Sunday morning there's a there's a Catholic Eucharist and on m during weekdays we we explain a little bit that we don't have the we don't all take part in a full celebration of the Eucharist. There's an old tradition and that was well known in monastic communities in the early centuries. It's something I studied a little bit in the early Christian practices, that you receive communion on weekdays often from what had been consecrated on the Sunday. And uh you say prayer, you you remind people that it was consecrated in the Eucharist. But you receive So we do that on weekdays, and we don't do it on Monday because people arrive at on Sunday afternoon. On Monday, we explain what's going to happen. We have a Bible introduction every morning. And just as the Bible introduction is going to begin, we make a series of practical announcements. We explain what the Eucharist is, those who wish to receive the presence of Christ in their life, and the Eucharistic uh sharing and and how it goes along with searching for unity. The word communion is of course receiving the host and receiving the consecrated bread, but it also means I want to be a person of communion. It's the words of St. Augustine, though, become what you are, the body of Christ. Become that, become that, become the body, become a person of communion. And so we don't want communion just to be something automatic, everybody goes because everybody's going. But it would be a choice. I want to, I want to be a I want to be a disciple, I want to be a follower of Christ, and I want to receive communion. And uh and then we have something else that is not so well known in the Western churches, it's more known in the Eastern Orthodox churches, it's blessed bread that is not the Eucharist, but it's bread that is bread that is blessed. And we equate it more with what Jesus did when he fed people in the desert. It said he gave them bread. Uh, and even people who didn't know what their real hunger was, he fed them. So it's a gesture of welcome to everyone, everyone who is searching, no matter where they're at in their search, they can receive this blessed bread. And so that way we don't force communion on of one church on the people who are there. They they choose to receive communion.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Okay. You mentioned that people come in sometimes on Monday. Uh I imagine sometimes they could come in on a Sunday evening. And I know that this is mostly a week-long experience for visitors. That's right. From Sunday to Sunday. From Sunday to Sunday. Uh tell us about that. So I know there's different age groups, there's different programming. If uh, let's say a group of 16 or 15 to 18-year-olds, you could break that down however necessary. Share with us what that might look like. What would this week be like?

SPEAKER_03 20:22

Well, people arrive in this tiny village in Burgundy, uh in the middle of nowhere. It's beautiful countryside, hills, rolling hills of Burgundy. They climb the hill or their bus climbs the hill and they get off the bus. They go through what we call a first welcome. We have a little jargon of our own, which often translated from Friends. It's a premier accueil, first welcome. And so there they get explanations of what happens at Tezée. So just to make sure we're all on the same page. It's a place of prayer, it's a place where we search for God. But you can come as you are. You can come with your doubts, you can come even with something that surprises Americans sometimes, but people show up who say, I don't really know, I don't really know what I think about Christianity. Uh but a friend of mine has been to Tezé, a friend of mine has been here and told me that you can go as you are with your questions, maybe with your anger also towards God, maybe you with your doubts, with your questions. And no one says, go away. No one says you didn't pass the test, go away. You come as you are. And so they're welcomed and then they're assigned to we we house people. We can house up to 2,000 people a week in the summer. About 2,000 young adults come every week. And it's not only the summer, just now uh we just welcomed in fall uh about 6,000 young people in the last two weeks. Uh and uh they're assigned to dormitories, small dorms, tents. We have place also for people over 35, it's slightly more comfortable, but but not very comfortable. It's a pilgrimage. It's not it's not not they're not there for comfort. Um and then the the week begins with uh a group with a tremendous challenge for the brothers. I'm one of the brothers, and so you lead the groups in Bible study, and you're Talking to people maybe who are never heard of certain books in the Bible. So you're referring to the Psalms. You have to explain, open your Bible in the middle, you'll come across the Psalms. You're talking to people who are studying theology. You're talking to pastors, you're talking to bishops, sometimes all kinds of people. We do group them by age. So 15 to 18, 15 to 17 will be together, 17 to 24 will be together, 25 to 35 will be together. And then over 35, there's what we call the adult group, where you get people, sometimes even very old people come and they enjoy their week, also at Tessa. But the challenge is speaking to that diversity, which I think is a good challenge. I think it's a good challenge. You have to be accessible, but not boring for those who already know a lot about scripture. And that's that's a wonderful challenge for a Bible scholar.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Okay. So there's if we're just talking about young people coming in, young people coming in from all over the world. Right. Yeah. And people can come from all over the world for the same week. You don't separate them. We don't. They come, they're all mixed together. Yeah. And even if they come from different languages. Yeah. So one of the things I think most people know to Zay for would be the worship gatherings with the chants. Uh can you talk about that a bit and how you uh make room for different languages? And uh what are the chants like there? And what's the hope for it?

unknown 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Well, I appreciate that you're situating the the chants in the context of what goes on at Ti Zé because lots of people don't know that. We they think we're musicians, we're composers who created had this great idea of composing these chants. But actually, the songs were created because of the challenge posed by the young people who are there who don't have a common language. They're from all over the world. They don't have much experience with what we call liturgical prayer. No, that they don't know how to sing the psalms. And they even if they knew they couldn't sing them in French, because most are not French speaking. And so in the 70s, when I arrived in the I came in the mid-70s, our our founder, Brother Roger, was a little bit frustrated seeing that some people were spectators to the prayer. He said, that's not right. People should never be spectators, they should be participants. And so that's how we started to look for a different form of song where very few words would be necessary, where people could learn, even if they don't speak the language, they could learn three or four words in a language to in order to sing a song. So that's how the songs of Desay were developed, starting in the mid-70s. Progressively the repertoire grew, and so these songs became really part of our prayer, became the heart of our prayer, uh, mixed with other elements that are in French that that allow the community also to be a little bit more nourished. But um, the surprise was that there's a publisher in the United States, GIA in Chicago, that believed that this music was not just for our context. They said, today people leave very busy lives. Our mind is scattered. No, we're we're doing we're texting, we're doing email, we're in traffic, we're have a million things to do, and we would like to pray, but our mind is all over the place. So the songs are not many words you just sing over and over again. Uh and slowly, maybe not maybe it doesn't work all the time, but slowly often what you are singing begins to enter your heart. And so this publisher believes that the music was made for people in many different contexts, and that's how they spread, that's how the music spread. But people don't always know the connection with this search for unity among Christians. They don't always know with another aspect of Tessa's search for justice in society. Brother Roger, our founder, believed that a Christian must know how to unite struggle and contemplation. We're called to be a people who unite a strong contemplative life, so a strong prayer life with a search for justice, with being there for the challenges of today, as I mentioned earlier. He was tried to be there for the challenges of his day when he started during the war. And that's been with us since the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Could you share? You don't have to sing anything unless you unless you want to. I hear the coughs coming.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Clearing the throat. Now you don't have to sing anything. Of course, if that is something you want to do, we'd surely welcome it. Um but could you share about a few of the chants? Let us know what the words are, and maybe uh how you see the links between contemplation and justice uh in any particular songs, any particular chants?

SPEAKER_03 26:30

Well, the the link can be made in in the song itself, uh, but um I think it's beyond that. I think it's more general realization that the peace you find in God, the the energy, the hope you find in God is is is so that you can go out to the world and and bring that peace where it's needed. And so some songs of course will make the unity like this one actually I'm the one who suggested the text. The text is from Romans, the famous text, the kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And I thought, oh, what a great song that would be if we united it to a prayer that Brother Roger wrote many years ago, come, Lord, and open in us the gates of your kingdom. The kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Come, Lord, and open in us the gates of your kingdom. So people sing that. People sing that, they start to realize some people I think start to realize it's Christianity is about joy. The kingdom of God is about joy and hope. And the word justice, of course, has several different meanings in scripture. Uh but it does include a way of living that reflects God's own being. A person of justice is someone who is a re becomes a reflection of God in the world. So where you find a people a person living out justice, you'll find a a world more inhabitable for for others, no, and so I'll let me try. One is from the Psalm. It's uh many of our songs are from the Psalms. Uh so this is from I think Psalm 62.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

In God alone my soul can find rest and peace. In God my peace and joy. Only in God my soul can find its rest. Find its rest and peace. In God alone, my soul.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Repetition. People sing that over, maybe 40, 50 times. We don't know how long the song's gonna last. When we sense it's time to finish, we finish it. And you sing this in different languages? Yes. So this song was what I just sang was originally composed in French. Mon âme se repose. And and then a brother came up with a good English translation that is singable. It's not just a translation of the words, but it's actually can be sung. And uh but sometimes we'll just switch languages like Nadatiturbi is a fairly famous Taise song, words from Saint Teresa Vavila, let nothing trouble you, let nothing worry you. Those who have God lack nothing. Let nothing worry you. So yeah, when you pray, I can tell you my favorite definition of prayer. Please do. It's come from an Eastern Orthodox theologian who came to Tezé a lot towards the end of his life, Olivier Clement. Olivier Clement, who's a fairly well-known figure in Europe. But in English, I think you have a book of his called The Roots of Christian Mysticism. Reading of the early Christian writings. Olivier Clement said that prayer is like entering into a state, a condition, the condition of being a non-orphan. A non-orphan. It's a little bit of a complicated definition, but it's really complicated. It's a really you you really you enter, you accept to be you accept that you're not an orphan. That's what praying is.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

And so it sounds like in some ways it begins with an understanding.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

I mean, maybe you see it this way, that we all are in search for a loving, holy parent presence. Yeah, presence. And and that is really, you know, that's really what Jesus says. When you pray, say Father or Father. And so you're not an orphan. And so prayer leads you to trust. Trust is a very important word to say. I think it's what a lot of people discover that I don't have to do everything on my own. I don't have to be in control of everything. Uh I can learn to trust. And when you learn to trust, you learn a certain way of living in the world. And Christianity is a lot about that. It's a certain way of inhabiting the world, living in the world.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Let me ask you, uh you offer that definition of prayer, which is a very impactful definition. You know, one of the things in society today that impacts the ability to trust one another does come down to our use of language. Um, a lot of people are afraid to say what they think because they think they're going to say the wrong thing. And sometimes they do say the wrong thing. Right. And then even in that definition, you know, it is complicated because there really are people in the world who there are children who might hear that language and say, wait a second, I actually identify with what that person means by orphan in a very tangible way through my life experience. And uh that definition almost dismisses it, either co-ops an identity or it dismisses and considers it, you know, ultimately inherently negative. When I hear you talk about to Zay having at its core this goal for communities where trust is built, where people can be real with each other, how do you how do you foster that or support that when so many times we talk past one another?

SPEAKER_03 32:33

Yeah, I'm I'm thinking as you are speaking in that way, I'm thinking about the culture of suspicion. The culture of suspicion, so it's almost the opposite of trust, you could say. But there are good things in the culture of suspicion also. It's not something that's right to be suspicious of a certain language, as you were saying. Is it dismissive of my identity? Is it is it respecting my identity? Is there some ulterior motive hidden behind a certain use of language? So the culture of suspicion has good sides. It's a one a friend of ours who was a great philosopher who I think was quite well known in the US also, who used to come to Tese to pray, Paul Recur, Paul Recur, who coined the expression the masters of suspicion. Uh and uh Recur used to say used to believe that there was a positive role to suspicion. But uh it's a problem when it becomes systematic. When it becomes system, when there's no reason not to trust and you're still keeping your distance, then maybe there's a problem. And I I just had an experience in San Francisco two days ago at the end of this gathering of young people that we had, this young woman, wonderful young woman, uh, said uh, I realized that up to now, every time I went to a place, I was always looking for the thing that was not perfect. The thing that I could criticize, that I could critique. And that was my project almost wherever I went. I was prickly, she said. I was prickly. And so and she realized that that was preventing her from connecting. So when there's reason to be suspicious, we should be suspicious and we should, we should react. But when it becomes a system and systematic, when there's no reason not to trust and we do not trust, then there's a problem. And I think when there's a climate of trust that favors real sharing, then that's different. That happens. And uh that's a lot of what happens at Teze. People come with that desire to grow in trust. Doesn't mean being naive. Trust is not for the naive. Trust is not for the naive, trust is also for people with critical minds. But you start to realize something sometimes that you're depriving yourselves, you're depriving yourself, depriving yourself of part of reality because there's this systematic trust, this overarching trust that prevents you from being in touch with certain realities. And that's something we have to work on.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

So let's let's draw some connections here to pilgrimage in some uh tangible ways. So, first of all, when young people show up, they they take a trip there, they leave things behind, they're choosing to be there for a week. You talk about this experience as a pilgrimage experience. Uh, and then at different points, you even said uh you said, uh, you know, like the sleeping accommodations, they're not luxurious because they're on a pilgrimage. Right. So, in your framing of pilgrimage, what what would you say is a pilgrimage?

SPEAKER_03 35:24

Well, that's a very important word for us at Tize because we are not a movement. We don't have members of Tize other than the brothers. There are maybe 85 brothers from different churches, as we said, but we get maybe 80,000 people coming for a week at Tize every year. And our message is always go back to your local church, go back to your local communities, go back to your own towns, your cities, try to be a person of trust, of leaven of trust, of reconciliation wherever you live. But we realize that not everyone has a positive experience of church. And so you say that, but how is the person going to be able to relate to that if they've never had an experience of church that is positive? So we decided that we would go outside of Tese, the brothers of Tese. Like now I'm traveling in the US. Um, so you're on a pilgrimage. I'm on a kind of pilgrimage, yeah. And uh, and uh and so we thought let's have at least one gathering every year that we prepare with all the churches, all the denominations of a city. And we call those in Europe, we call them the European meetings. They bring together 5,000, 10,000, up to 100,000 young people uh for four and a half days. We have to house them, we have to feed them for four and a half days, we have to find places big enough to pray in for four and a half days. And we decided that we would call all of these gatherings, they've been going on for 40 years now, so it's a long pilgrimage. 40 years, it's also symbolical maybe. But it's we've called it pilgrimage, a pilgrimage of trust across the earth, with every gathering being a kind of stage or step on this pilgrimage. So we've done that throughout Europe. Uh we've done it in South America, we've done it in Africa, we've done it in Asia. Uh each step bringing together people who want to go to sources of trust. So that's one aspect of the pilgrimage, is that inner pilgrimage to sources, the well springs a pilgrim is someone who goes to well springs of trust and faith and hope. But also really a physical pilgrimage, getting up, going, and going into complex situations of division. Uh that's also why we chose this expression pilgrimage of trust, complex situations uh where there are no easy answers, but uh not allowing that complexity to paralyze you. Sometimes we see situations that are so complex that they're no easy answers. That's why I would relate the pilgrimage to the first beatitude of Jesus. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The first beatitude speaks of this kind of poverty. Poverty in spirit. It can be material poverty, but it's also poverty in spirit. Spirit means you've chosen it. You've chosen a certain poverty, you've been reconciled to a certain form of being without answers to everything. And yet not having answers has not paralyzed you from taking initiatives or going and and then the second part of the Beatitudes that theirs is the kingdom of God. It means that something of the kingdom of God, of God's life, it means no, of God's life, of God's love, God's God's being can become almost tangible, almost palpable. Uh because you're living that poverty of spirit together with others. You're expecting you're accepting to search with others. Searching for the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. Yeah, with our limitations. With our limitations, with not saying we have the answers, but we were to I was at a meeting once in Portland, Oregon. I remember they they knew we were two brothers there, so they brought together people from all different churches, uh people working on with asylum seekers and migrants, and they said, we don't know all the answers, but we know we have to be together to search for the answers. And I felt, oh, that's that's a moment, a very important moment when people realize that. That's so so our pilgrimage is uh very much done in that in that spirit.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Okay. So one thing I'm hearing there is that one thing that makes this a pilgrimage is that from the very beginning, the focus is on the return home. It's focused on what happens to you, who you become, who you encounter, but not just for you to bottle it up inside of yourself. It's a part of your journey home. And whatever this experience is in Teze needs to be a part of who you are when you return home.

SPEAKER_03 39:38

Yeah. I think that's Christianity is has to do with the real. It's not as it's not an imaginary world. It's not a it's not an alternative world, but somehow has to connect with what's going on in reality and and uh the sect will say escape from the world, run away from the world. Christianity says this is the world that God loves and and saved. And so we're we must manifest something of that through our lives, through the signs of resurrection that we can also offer as communities. Our communities should be signs of resurrection. That's the message we carry in the world.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Aaron Powell So then when you are in the different cities while you're on the pilgrimage outside of France, um do people show up to that city from all over the world, or do they show up just from that city? Do they show up from all over the world, really?

SPEAKER_03 40:32

They come from all over the world. And the European meetings, naturally, they're mostly Europeans, but occasionally it's happened that some will come from North America or Japan. We've also had people come from all the way from Japan for the European meetings. Um they're and they're welcomed by by the churches. And that's uh You know, when you use the word church, it brings to mind you're talking about the problem with language, it brings together to mind all kinds of experiences. For some people, it's a building. For something, for some people, it's something boring that happens on Sunday morning. For other people, it's exciting. They're part of a rich community, a lively community and that meets on Sunday, but also does more than just Sunday worship. And so you never know what the word's gonna bring to mind. And in order for the word to become meaningful, you have to have an experience of church. And that's what these pilgrimages are like. It's an experience of church.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Ah, so it's like um it's it's understanding church as a happening. Church happens. It happens. You know it when you're in the midst of it. Yeah. And you it it impacts you in a way that does create a sense of home.

unknown 41:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

A sense of wanting to foster home wherever you go. I think so.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

I think uh, but I you know the word experience can be used trivially, superficially, or it can be used in a deep way. No, uh I think Luther said that it's experience that makes the theologian experience. There's no, there's no the theologian's not a good theologian unless he's had an experience of God. And so so experience is important, but in a deep kind of way, it can be an experience over a five-year period, over a 10-year period, over a long period of life, not just one mystical moment where you're feeling joyful, but it can be a long process where you realize that I've gone from anxiety, from worry, from inner division to being more whole, more of a united person inside, and I'm trying to seek that unity also among my brothers and sisters in the world. And so it has consequences that inner unity. For monk, I'm a monk. I'm a brother. So the word monastic monos no means one, right? So you try to be one inside, you try to be more united inside, but it also leads you to try to create this unity with the people around you. And so there are all these dimensions that that play.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

Aaron Powell Why do you think this kind of deep experience happens on pilgrimage?

SPEAKER_03 42:49

That's a good question. That's a good question. Because I think we we leave what is familiar behind. We accept to go towards the unknown. Uh so of course, you know, Hebrews 11, Abraham set out without knowing where he was going. That was his pilgrimage of faith now without knowing where he was going. And so we accept to discover. We don't have all these - just our past experience to evaluate things based on our past experience. But we we accept to experience something new, a true encounter with, and in a spirit where we don't have everything. So you're more vulnerable when you're a pilgrim. No, you're not sure where you're going to sleep, you're not sure where you're going to eat. Uh and so you're more vulnerable. You're open to reality, to what a reality offers, to what God offers in reality, a person of kindness, someone who helps you, an experience of community, an experience of joy with someone you never met before, but you feel suddenly feels like a sister or a brother. Uh all of that happens in these large European meetings or meetings on other continents that I spoke about. And people have a hard time finding words for that. How is it possible that in three or four days we have become family? So you discover really what the church is about in a very deep way, you know, this community in Christ.

SPEAKER_01 43:59

You know, the way you just Just described the impact of pilgrimage in the way it opens people up reminds me of fasting. You know, people often say, like, what's the point of fasting? You know, if you don't eat for a certain amount of time or maybe a meal. Um, like, what does that do? And, you know, one of the descriptions of that is that it does open us to become aware of our vulnerabilities, of our deeper hunger. It creates in us a sensibility that we didn't have before. And your description of pilgrimage, the way it opens, is almost like um a very like it's like fasting through space and time so that you're open not just to what's happening in you, but you're open to other people and uh the significance of place, and it creates a an openness to sort of gratitude.

SPEAKER_03 44:57

Well, I I like the way you say that because um fasting today, I think, is not necessarily not having very much food, but maybe the spiritual disciplines of today, because fasting was one of the spiritual disciplines of the monastic communities in the early church. Maybe fasting today is doing less. Turning off your computer. Going to meet a real person, going for a walk. Having a walk there where you look at nature, you open up to the beauty of the world. And so maybe that's a spiritual discipline for today. It's not necessarily eating less, but it's it's uh it's being open, finding ways that open you up to aspects of reality that are not things that we control, master, make money out of, but aspects of reality that are that are important, that are essential. And I think when we are deprived of those realities, we suffer.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

So you're on this pilgrimage now, and uh you've done uh different years of a pilgrimage of trust across the earth. And when you do that, you you discern where to go by stepping into some challenges. Um where have you been recently? Uh where have you been on this trip? Has this been part of that as well? And uh what challenges were you seeking to step into or help people step into well?

SPEAKER_03 46:24

Well, it's always something that is on my mind. No, how much is this travel, this journey going to put me in touch with realities that are difficult and where there are challenges. So tomorrow I'm going to the a group working with migrants at the border. And uh so it's uh uh a sister there who welcomes volunteers working at the border, and there's a young lawyer who works for human rights, and and so I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to meeting these people. Some of the bigger pilgrimages I've I had to prepare once was when the South African churches invited us to do something, just when the transition was being made when Andele was elected president. We had been in contact for a long time with South Africa. Bishop Tutu had been to Tezé, Desmond Tutu. And uh when he entered the church at Teze Desmond Tutu came, I think in 1980, he said, I heard, I saw something. I saw South Africans from all different ethnic backgrounds from all different denominations, and I heard the number 144. And he said, I understood that was my mission to prepare 144 young South Africans in in the days of apartheid, huh? The days of apartheid to come to Tese. So he did. He went back to South Africa. He worked very hard to get passports in those days. It was very difficult. And uh and his big group came. I remember 1980, we were singing those beautiful South African songs and Tezé songs that go so well together with the South African songs. And so the connection continued. And in 1993, I believe, the election happened in 1994. When Mandela was elected, they wrote saying, We think you should do this kind of pilgrimage of trust in South Africa, Johannesburg. So the church leaders from Johannesburg have breakfast, I think, together once a month. And they they had this idea. So they wrote a letter. Brother Roger wrote back saying, Oh, it's not up to us to do this. It's we're not we're not from South Africa. You you have to do it. And they wrote back saying, No, no, we really have this lasting relationship, meaningful relationship for many years. Uh we think you should come. And so Brother Roger said, Okay, but not 94, not the year of the election. We came, we went in 95. So I was involved in preparing that. I lived in Johannesburg for several months. Uh I had been meeting with South Africans coming to Tese for many years. And of course it was meaningful, no, at that critical moment where you hope, you would hope that Christians realize it's a Kairos moment. No, it's a moment that this is not going to be around for very long. This special time. And we can st open up to each other. Um maybe ask forgiveness for the past also, because for the Dutch Reformed Church, for example, that a justified appetite. There were some very courageous people who didn't know bears nowadays, for example. One of the great leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church accepted to be banned by its own country. Uh but there was a moment there of repentance among many people that these churches opened up. But I remember being there. Some people understood, and other people said, Well, we have other plans for that weekend. And and so you you see you see that there are these critical moments where we should be present. We felt the same when the Berlin Wall fell. We had been going secretly to Eastern Europe for many, many years, since 62, since the building of the Berlin Wall.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

There was this moment, 89. Where things were open. People could travel.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

Uh people were open to maybe also being with people from other churches. And so Brother Roger felt let's do everything we can to bring people together. That's when we had these large gatherings, 100,000 people, 80,000 people in Paris and Vienna, Austria, and then Poland, uh Czech Republic and Prague, uh, tiny church in Prague, tiny churches where there had been wars of religion in the 17th century, Christians fought each other. That's why people no longer take Christianity seriously in that country. And many if it provokes war. So rebuilding of trust there, rebuilding of what Christianity means was was very, very necessary. But it was it was great moments. All of those places we've been to lots of different countries where there are challenges, India, uh Rwanda after the genocide, uh the church is asked there. That we go for a pilgrimage to us when you're talking about something that is almost beyond words. No people who've suffered so much and you could be paralyzed. You could say nothing is possible after such suffering, but it was meaningful to be together. We prayed around the cross. We we uh we got people to know get to know each other a little bit more. Yeah, in in the United States I think two gatherings stand out in my memory. We once it was an invitation to go to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Uh there was a young Episcopal priest who had brought young people to Tezai from the reservation. Uh had brought them also to a gathering we did in Chicago. And they said we would like to host something on the reservation. They approached the tribal leaders, their leaders. And the tribal leaders said we're going to vote on this. And they voted unanimously that they wanted young people to come from all over the U.S. and Canada and different parts of the world to to live on the reservation. One of the leaders said it's always been my dream that people would live with us for some days, get to know us just by being with us. And so we kept on the Pine Region five, six hundred people from forty different states. Some people came from Canada as well, a few Europeans. Because some of the native people from South Dakota had been to a gathering we had in Finland. They also have a native population, Finland, and they had been so touched by the welcome they wanted to offer a very special welcome to the those coming from Finland. That stands out in my mind as one very remarkable moment, uh, where we were three days together. That was a Memorial Day weekend, 2013. It happened in 2017, shortly after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson. Uh one church leader from St. Louis wrote to us saying, I'm a church leader, I know I should be doing something to foster unity and reconciliation, but nothing has worked. People haven't shown up. And I I was in South Dakota before I remember your pilgrimage. Would you come to St. Louis? I was traveling in the US when his letter reached his Ave. The brothers encouraged me to go see this church leader who was the Archbishop of St. Louis. And uh I said, the community thinks it's a good idea, but we think all the churches should be involved, not just one denomination. And he accepted. So we began to contact all the different denominations, all the independent churches as well: Baptist, uh, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Paleo, and Catholic. They all accepted. And some of the great African-American leaders uh accepted to help us.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

Uh in St.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

Louis, those who had played a big role in the in the events around Ferguson, those who had saved many lives too, who had uh Tracy Blackman and uh Starsky Wilson. And so we we had this uh great pilgrimage of trust where people stayed in homes, neighborhoods, uh very different from one another. But just as important as the gathering of that lasted three days, the Memorial Day was the preparation. I stayed several months in St. Louis, and we realized that we we had to go out to all the different areas. We can't couldn't wait for people to come to us. So we had 40 evenings, 40 different evenings in the different parts of St. Louis. We called them evenings of trust. Evenings of trust. We started with a prayer, to say songs, maybe half an hour of prayer. Then we had these conversations on trust. What's necessary to build trust? If we're going to build trust. For example, if your needs aren't taken seriously by the other side, there's not going to be trust. And so what are what what do we have to what do we have to do to in order to foster trust in a city? And uh there was a for me, the preparation was almost almost more important than the three-day event, because every night someone accepted to cross a border, an invisible border, uh, go to a different neighborhood, uh, go to a different part of the city, in spite of the reputation that it was dangerous or unknown territory. And uh or the assumption. The assumption. The assumption. Yes. I remember some one man from a rich white suburb parked his car at Ferguson and he said, Ah. I'm ashamed to say it, but my first thought was, is my car safe here? And there was an African-American woman who said, Ha, it's funny that you should say that, because when I go to your neighborhood, I wonder if I'm safe. So there was this wonderful sharing, no, and and learning from one another. And and uh and the prayer and the and the workshops uh were great, led by by some of these great African-American leaders. And I I remember that they're they're they're with great gratitude that uh that they accepted to help with this.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

So you really do find places where there are challenges and step into it and invite others to step into it with the hope of returning home. Yeah. In a way that brings this experience, deep experience or pathway into trust as a part of how they live wherever home is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:33

And I think remember I mentioned the first beatitude, blessed are the poor spirit. It means also that you accept to have empty hands. No, and these constitutions are so complex. I noticed in St. Louis, so complex. No. Uh you could be paralyzed by the complexity, but but you have to start somewhere. So you have to start somewhere. And uh and we met people like that who accepted to start in their neighborhood to build trust by simple initiatives, going to visit someone, going to visit another community, uh, praying together, forming new friendships. And uh and when you go in with empty hands, not with not being simplistic, but with a spirit of simplicity, something of the kingdom happens. Something of the kingdom is, as I said earlier, almost palpable. You can you can almost touch it. And so that's been our experience pretty much everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

So let me uh move to closing out our conversation with two questions. And I've found that um these two questions uh seem to be common among leaders who are wanting to guide pilgrimage, uh, specifically leaders guiding young people on pilgrimage, but um well we can even think more broadly. How do you suggest preparing for the pilgrimage and pilgrimage experiences that you have in mind? And then also, how do you suggest processing or how do you suggest engaging that post-pilgrimage time, you know, the days, the weeks, the years, yeah, the preparation and the processing.

SPEAKER_03 57:15

What comes to mind to me is that you're going towards the unknown, right? When you're on a pilgrimage, you're not in control of everything, so you accept to be more vulnerable. And that's when good things can happen. Your w your world can become bigger. Your mind broadens, your sense of possibility also broadens. That's uh that's a good definition of hope. It's uh when the sense of the possible increases, uh and uh preparation can involve uh accepting in advance that you're not going to be in control of everything. So you accept to go with vulnerability, you accept to not always be in comfortable situations. There's no real pilgrimage unless you're a little bit tired, unless your body's a little bit tired. You get you accept those conditions, not to punish yourself, but in order to be more open. In order to be more open to to these realities of the kingdom that we that that are that don't tend to be very present when we're in control of everything. And so that's one thing. Then sharing it when you go back, uh well, every week we have that message at Teza. No, that I told you that we go from Sunday to Sunday. So on Saturday morning, when I give the final Bible introduction to my group, um, I always say, it's not gonna work if you try to do this alone. It's not gonna work. You your community is necessary. Christianity becomes something very abstract when you try to do it alone. It becomes things that are in your head, things that you're supposed to believe. And if you cannot touch places, if you cannot have the experience of community, where the where something of the kingdom is seen through that experience, then it then it's all about it. It's all very abstract. You're gonna get discouraged. You're gonna So community is vital, I think, to the going back, finding places where you can reread what you experienced and see what consequences it's going to have, what was going to lead you to. Uh it's gonna lead you maybe to a life where you take risks. That's what I'm here. This year I'm traveling in the United States and I'm talking a lot about risk and the relationship between imagination and trust at risk. And many people have great ideas today. They see, I could do something here, or this is possible, but there's no guarantee it's gonna work. And if there's no guarantee, oh, it's too risky, I'm not gonna do it. But we need people who take risks. I think Jesus needed people willing to take risks. And so that comes only if you find this vital trust in God. And so we need, I think, two places where we can grow in trust in the way we do that when we are together with others. When you're together with others, you're not always all hopeful, and you're not always not everyone is downtrodden or depressed. There's generally a good mixture in a group, no? And so one day I am carried by the hope and the faith of others, and another day I help to carry others.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

And so community is vital. Brother Emile, thank you so much for spending time with us here. And um I am quite confident that this conversation will be a blessing to various pilgrimage leaders and pilgrimage participants. So thank you, Brother Emil. Thank you, Montega. I appreciate it as well. It's good to be with you. You've been listening to Breathe in Place, a podcast brought to you by the Pilgrimage Innovation Hub. This podcast is made possible by Jeffrey support from the Lillian government, narrative production by Gimel Sabingo, technical production by Danny Martinez, and project coordination and guest booking by Wanda Gailey, opening music by chaos. If you have any questions or comments about today's episode, we'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at pilgrimage at pointlement.edu or message us on Instagram at Pilgrimage Innovation Hub. I'm your host, Monte Williams. Thanks again for joining us. We'll see you next week.