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FRANCE 2012
Day 8, Monday, Sept 10
CLUNY (TAIZE)
We began the day a little earlier with
breakfast in the hotel breakfast/lunch room. We saw our new friends
from England,and they told us goodbye as they were driving to Reims. We
walked around the west end of the Abbey ruins. As I mentioned, our
hotel is sitting inside on the right side of the former abbey. This
hotel was built in 1817, shortly after the destruction of the abbey
church.
The
photo on the left was taken from the original entrance to the Abby. You
can see the distance between this point and the remaining South Tower.
The photo on right is the remains to an arch near west front.
We decided to explore the area to the left of the former Abby
entrance and West façade.
The building is near the wall is an independent residential
building, the palace built by the Abbot Jean de Bourbon in t
he
second half of the 15th century. It is called the Palace of Pope
Gelasius. Abbott Jean de Bourbon preferred to have an independent
residence directly accessible from the great Gates. The monumental
complex included all that was indispensable to the life of a rich
prelate. It was spared the vandalism of the Revolution and was then
purchased by a resident of Cluny, Jean-Baptiste Ochier. It assumed its
present role as museum following a gift by the widow of a Cluny doctor
in 1864. Two years later the new museum opened its doors.
Not far from this house was a much larger ornate home – the palace
of Jacques d' Ambroise. It was erected by an Abbott of the same name.
The palace turned his back o
n
the Abby entrance and faces east. The front windows were decorated by
delicate carvings.
Walking past this palace, we came to an amphitheater which
contained a tower on the wall of the far side. It bears the name of
Abbott Hughes
de Fabry, who served as Abbott from 1350 to 1351. This tower dates from
the 14th century. In the 15th century it was equipped with machiolations
(a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through
which stones, or other objects, could be dropped on attackers at the
base of a defensive wall).
After climbi
ng
down some rather steep steps, we reached the street that runs along the
side of the hotel. The right side of the road contained a very old and
tall wall. We walked back to the hotel to get our car.
One of the things that my wife really wanted to do was to attend
the noon day service at the Taize Community which is about 6 miles from
here. The Taizé Community was founded by Frère Roger in 1940. He
pondered what it really meant to live a life according to the
>Scriptures and
began a quest for a different expression of the Christian life.
At the
end of 2010, the community was composed of about one hundred brothers,
fromProtestant
and Catholic
traditions, who originate from about thirty countries across the world.
The community has two aims: to seek communion with God through prayer
and to be a leaven of peace and trust in the midst of the human family.
The program is particularly geared to young people 18-28. Some come to
stay a few days, others a month or so, and a year or more. We got there
about noon and a young lady from Germany welcomed us and told us about
the service and that we could buy a lunch ticket.
As we approached the church, there was a group of young people who
were holding large signed reading "silence".We went into a very
large modern church with large red flames behind the altar. There a
few benches around the side walls for us old folks. The center of the
aisle is reserved for the 100 monks. All of the young folks (and the
monks) sat or knelt on the floor. The service, which lasted about a
half hour, consisted of singing several chants which were in Latin, a
brief scripture reading, about 15 minutes of silence for private prayer
and meditation, a prayer, and several more chants. There were hundreds
of people there.
We have experienced the Taize service at the Washington
Cathedral. This year during Lent at St. James, we sang Taize chants for
about 10 minutes before the service. The chants generally consist of
one sentence that is sung over and over many times, often as a round.
An example: Bonum est confidere in Domino (it is good to trust and hope
in the Lord).
After the service we followed the crowd up a small hill
to a large tent. We asked directions from a young woman, who told us
she was from Poland.
back to Poland to school. She
took us to the “adult’s lunch tent”. There was a serving line, where
everyone received a tray, plate and cup. Lunch was a small package of
cheese, a cookie and large scoop of rice which contain pieces of ham and
corn. There were chairs out in the yard and benches in the tent which
people ate on their laps of sideway on the bench with the food in
front. There were a few tables for “the disabled” which we claimed.
A very nice lady from Australia sat across from us and we had a
delightful conservation with her. She has traveled all over the
world. 
On my left was a young lady from Barcelona who spoke English
quite well. Her mother sat across from her. She was from Cordoba in
Spain where we had visited the famous mosque/cathedral. The mother did not
speak English so her daughter told us everything I said. It was most
enjoyable lunch.
We walked back down the road and saw the old church and
a few of the original houses. We went back to the bookstore and bought
several books and a CD of the music. If you want to know more they have
a website – www.taize.fr .
On the way
back we saw a sign for an old church but missed the turn off. I had
remembered seeing another sign so we took that road – it went up and up
and around and around getting narrower all the time. The scenery was
beautiful and since no one else was on the road, we took
some photos of
the white cows.
We finally came to the church on top of the hill.
There was no one anywhere around. We went in. It was quite
lovely.
We
were back at the hotel in about 10 minutes. We took a little walk and
got ice cream cones.
W
e came back to our room. We had picked out a
place to eat across the square but there was some kind of school
initiation going with a lot of loud hollering so we went a couple block
away to the outdoor café next to the ice cream store. On our travels
were have found that there were a few menus with French and English and
this was all in French. Our server helped us a little. I had fish en
brochette (fish medallions ), roasted new potatoes and something that
was sort of congealed- don’t know what it was but it was good.
Kathleen had a baked fish, brown rice and the same little surprise. For
dessert we shared a rhubarb tart with ice cream. We need to get to bed
soon as we have a two hour or more drive ahead of us in the morning. We
want to arrive at my friend, Alain’s home a little after noon.
