Desert Flower to Taizé

14 members of the youth group of the Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew speaking Catholics in Israel gathered at Ben Gurion airport in preparation for their trip to France. They represent most of the communities of the Vicariate: 3 from the Jerusalem kehilla, 3 from the Jaffa kehilla, 2 from the Beer Sheba kehilla, 2 from the Nazareth kehilla, 1 from the Haifa kehilla, 1 from the Tiberias kehilla as well as 2 from the Lebanese Maronite community in the north and 1 from the Filipino community. They are all active members in the youth group, Desert Flower, and 7 of them just completed the children’s summer camp, the kaytana, in Deir Rafat where they served as assistants to the counselors. The accompaniers are Father Apolinary from Jaffa, Brother Alberto from Jaffa and Benny from Jerusalem.

The youth will spend a week in Taizé, an ecumenical monastery in France dedicated to prayer and work with young people. The monastery is renown in the Christian world because of its music (you can listen to some melodies from Taizé here). The experience in the monastery will deepen the prayer life of these young people and the hope is that they will return and share their experience with other young people from the kehillot. After the week in the monastery, they will spend three days in Paris.

This trip was made possible through the generosity of donors and friends. A grant for the voyage was made by the diocese of Paderborn in Germany, thanks to the mediation of Christina from the Jerusalem kehilla (who is originally from that diocese). The brothers in Taizé invited the youth after a visit paid to the kehillot by Brother Emil. In addition, Father Thierry Vernet invited the young people to spend three days in Paris, at his parish. We thank all those who contributed and thus made the trip possible.