15 Days of Prayer with Brother Roger of Taizé
Sabine Laplane
Judith Bruder (Translator)
ISBN 9781565483491
ISBN 9781565483750
ASIN B003M68XEE
Last year I stumbled upon a different volume in this series, 15 Days of Prayer with Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati by Père Charles Desjobert, OP, and really enjoyed it. I did some research on the series and this was the twelfth volume I decided to work through. In my research to date there have been at least 40 volumes in this series. Many written in French and then translated, including this volume, this book was first published in French in 2008, the English edition appeared 2010. Then in 2010 the series were rebranded, this is one of only a handful with digital copies currently available.
I believe as of the writing of this review there have been 40 volumes in the series; the earliest I found was from 1999 through to a volume which was published in 2025. Only about a dozen seem to be in print currently and of those only a handful appears to have eBooks. With my dual form of dyslexia this is disappointing. I greatly prefer eBooks so I can change the font, and the colour of font and page to make reading easier. I have added all the eBook editions I could find to my wish list. About the Series we are informed:
“15 Days of Prayer Series
On a journey, it’s good to have a guide. Even great saints took spiritual directors or confessors with them on their itineraries toward sanctity. Now you can be guided by the most influential spiritual figures of all time. The 15 Days of Prayer series introduces their deepest and most personal thoughts.
This popular series is perfect if you are looking for a gift, or if you want to be introduced to a particular guide and his or her spirituality. Each volume contains:
• A brief biography of the saint or spiritual leader
• A guide to creating a format for prayer or retreat
• Fifteen meditation sessions with reflection guides”
The description of this specific volume states:
“Brother Roger (1915-2005) founded the ecumenical Taizé Community, which continues to welcome tens of thousands of young adult pilgrims each year. The Community is familiar to the faithful of many denominations, who use Taizé’s meditative songs in their worship.
Above all else Brother Roger strived not to be a spiritual master or teacher of methods of prayer and meditation but a listener. So this book presents not a program of prayer but an itinerary through the insights at the heart of Brother Roger’s life of prayer and of action, telling the story of the Taizé Community along the way. It allows readers to know and to pray with a figure who touched thousands of lives and helped, as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has said, “Change the whole climate of a religious culture.””
There is no ‘about the author’ section in the book or on the back. But we are informed on the page with the book description that:
“Sabine Laplane, a member of the Apostolic Community of Saint Francis Xavier, knew Brother Roger personally and remains a friend of Taizé. The Taizé brothers themselves encouraged her to write this book.”
The chapters in this volume are:
How to Use This Book
How to Use This Book
Abbreviations
Chronology of Brother Roger’s Life
Brother Roger of Taizé (1915–2005)
1. The Humble Sign of a Community
2. In Our Darkness, Kindle the Flame That Never Dies Away
3. Returning to the Spirit of Childhood
4. God Is Love Alone
5. A Yes for a Lifetime
6. Happy the Simple-Hearted!
7. Living God’s Today
8. A Path Opens
9. A Mystery of Communion
10. Struggle and Contemplation
11. Kindness of Heart
12. Each of Us Has a Pastoral Gift
13. A Passionate Waiting
14. A Wider Outlook
15. A Pilgrimage of Trust
For Further Reading
Also available in the “15 Days of Prayer” series:
I highlighted a few of passages while reading this volume some of them are:
“Like the others in this series, this book is an invitation to spend some time in the company of someone who can become, for a while, like a companion on our journey of prayer—someone who can help us draw inspiration from the sources that gave astonishing vitality to his own life. Brother Roger cannot be taken as an isolated, individual spiritual figure: his life is inseparable from the existence of the Taizé Community in France.”
“So this book is an opportunity to get to know and to pray with a figure who touched countless thousands of lives and helped (in the words of Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury) change the whole climate of a religious culture.”
“The book can, of course, be read straight through, but it is best if possible to give each chapter plenty of time. The chapters can accompany the stages of a quiet retreat, for those who have the opportunity. Or they can be read day by day, or week by week, during the course of everyday life. If there is an opportunity to give them quality time, in a place where you know you will not be disturbed, so much the better. Take time for the questions, too, to make links to the realities of your own life.”
“To follow Christ with the gift of his whole life he trusted in something which his child’s eye had glimpsed in his beloved and admired grandmother: that it is within oneself that one begins the process of reconciliation.”
“Along with kindheartedness, simplicity does not exclude a search for beauty nor for a way of harmony which reveals something to us about the tenderness of our God: relying on the generosity of God’s gift in each person; listening, rather than giving advice; living in wonder, and letting our hearts thrill.”
“We are overwhelmed by a great desire to pray, and yet may find ourselves inhibited by our ignorance of how to do so. Without waiting for the Lord to respond, or without knowing how to figure it out for ourselves, we try to put together a fragment here, another fragment there, until a moment comes when we encounter others on the way, who become witnesses for us, guides who help us to focus on Christ and who help us put words to the realities of our inner life.”
“Solitude may be an essential condition of an inner life, but isolation is not.”
“The Creator remains attached to the man or woman whom he has made in his own image, and in whom he recognizes the image of his Son.”
“It is not so much that God is silent, as that we hide ourselves behind a veil.”
““Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us, let not my doubts or my darkness speak to me. Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us; let my heart always welcome your love.””
“To pull off our masks, or not to take them seriously, doesn’t mean being naive or maladjusted to social life. We know that, consciously or not, we are often part of the social game, even within the Church. We can try not to be a part of this game while still remaining in touch with practical reality and a sense of our responsibilities.”
“How marvelous is this faith and this recognition of a God who accompanies human beings, who joins us in our trials. Brother Roger loved to repeat that “in Jesus, ‘God is united to every human being without exception,’ ” restating in his own manner the words of the Second Vatican Council in Gaudium et Spes.”
“Let us keep our eyes fixed upon Christ who himself knew the feeling of abandonment, who tasted the loneliness of suffering. In the agony at Gethsemane he experienced human abandonment as well as God’s silence. He joins us in the today of his resurrection: he is here among us, accompanying us, urgently inviting us to believe in his love which is for all time.”
“God our Father, we want to love you with all our strength, with all our soul. But you know that there can be within us inner resistances. Give us the boldness to leap over the walls, to dare to renew again and for always the yes of the gift of our whole life.”
“Throughout your day, let work and rest be quickened by the Word of God. Keep inner silence in all things so as to dwell in Christ. Be filled with the spirit of the Beatitudes: joy, simplicity, mercy. (EN)”
“Are there a few inner priorities which have always marked my life? Can I formulate them? Do I hear the call to live more simply? How can my life become less cluttered, more focused on what really matters? What can I let go of ? How can a simple life remain joyful and not austere?”
“A disposition toward the future that might be called hope, the conviction in the depths of his heart that Christ had transmitted a mission to his Church, that God does not stop caring about every human being, and does not withdraw from history.”
“Good news! It may be late, but there is still time to open our door and invite the stranger to our table, and to welcome the Spirit of the Risen Christ who interprets the Scriptures for us.”
“To go forward and better to understand others, Brother Roger always initiated meetings, going to Rome, to Constantinople, even to Moscow. With Pope John XXIII he experienced a deep accord which gave him a new understanding of the ministry of communion for the universal Church which the Bishop of Rome was called to exercise.”
“These days I often find myself in the little Romanesque church, near the reserved Eucharist. This place is inhabited by a living Presence: the faith of the Catholic Church has testified to it since the first centuries.”
“For disciples of Jesus, it is urgent not to get sidetracked into a meaningless opposition between involvement with people and the inner life (which itself knows struggles and crises).”
“We need only open ourselves to contemplation. It will teach us how to see, and expand the space before us where we will encounter the newness of the Spirit.”
“Mindful of the suffering and isolation of Christians behind the Iron Curtain, some brothers traveled to meet with them. Sometimes Brother Roger went also. Some brothers learned Russian. Any time it was possible to take part in a church camp, go on a pilgrimage such as at Czestochowa, or help at a construction site, some young people were sent to do so.”
“God is always on the side of those who weep. Consequently, during the Second Vatican Council, Brother Roger, before rejoicing over the adoption of a text he favored, which was however not unanimously passed, requested a prayer for the minority who felt unrecognized. It comes about that in opening itself to all the misery of the world in daily prayer, morning and evening, the heart becomes wider and is more generous in its intercessions.”
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In following them we find ourselves invited to changes in our lives, sometimes ones whereby we seem to be standing still, fruits of inner work or of reflection, sometimes ones marked by encounters which open us far beyond anything we had thought we were looking for.”
I hope those quotes give you a feel for this volume. I picked this volume because I had it and also the volume ‘Brother Roger and Taizé A New Springtime’ by Father Bryan Wells a biography from The Catholic Truth Society, that I had not read yet. I read it towards the end of working through this volume.
This is a good volume in an excellent series. Spending these 15 days with Brother Roger, was informative. I will admit I was aware of the name Brother Roger, and Taizé prior to reading this volume and the other mentioned. I do recall the early paperback edition of the Glory & Praise Hymn booklets in church in the late 70’s and early 80’s and the connection to Taizé. But I had not looked much into it. In the early 2000’s when I was a mature student back in university, the Chaplains office often used the music of Taizé. And I recall a few students who even went. But I had never really looked into it with any depth. I am thankful I have done so now with this volume. The written reflections and the discussion questions were engaging. I just really wish all of the 40 volumes were available as eBooks, I would work through them all if so.
A good read in a great series!
Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2026 Catholic Reading Plan!
Books by or about Brother Roger and Taizé:
...
Books in the 15 Days of Prayer With Series:
Blessed Frédéric Ozanam - Christian Verheyde
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Matthieu Arnold
Don Bosco - Robert Schiele
Henri Nouwen - Robert Waldron
Jean-Claude Colin - Francois Drouilly
Johannes Tauler - Andre Pinet
Meister Eckhart - André Gozier
Peter Joseph Triest - Brother René Stockman
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - André Dupleix
Saint Alphonsus Liguori - Jean-Marie Segalen
Saint Augustine - Jaime García
Saint Benedict - André Gozier
Saint Catherine of Siena - Chantal van der Plancke
Saint Clare of Assisi - Marie-France Becker
Saint Dominic - Alain Quilici
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton - Betty Ann McNeil
Saint Eugene de Mazenod - Bernard Dullier
Saint Faustina Kowalska - John Cleary
Saint Francis de Sales - Claude Morel
Saint Francis of Assisi - Thaddée Matura O.F.M.
Saint John of the Cross - Constant Tonnelier
Saint Katharine Drexel - Leo Luke Marcello
Saint Martín de Porres: A Saint of the Americas - Brian J. Pierce
Saint Teresa of Avila - Jean Abiven
Saint Therese of Lisieux - Victoria Hebert
Saint Thomas Aquinas - Suzanne Vrai and André Pinet
Saint Vincent de Paul - Jean-Pierre Renouard
The Curé of Ars - Pierre Blanc
…
