A very warm welcome to you all who have come in large numbers from different parts of Portugal to pray with us this week as we enter into the time of Lent. Welcome also to those who are here from the US, Germany, Italy and other countries. Your presence counts a lot for us and we are happy to share these days with you.

I remember coming to Taizé as a student for my first time volunteering with the community 39 years ago during this time of year.

Filled with all kinds of resolutions to draw closer to Christ and welcome the Kingdom of God, I was overwhelmed to hear Brother Roger, our founder, who was still alive at that time, speak of this period of preparation as “forty days to celebrate the forgiveness that Christ reveals to us through the gift of his life”.

Suddenly, it became clear to me that personal conversion did not depend on my own efforts, however praiseworthy - and, incidentally, logical by my own standards - they might be, if it was not simply to turn to Christ who received me with open arms and even joy, just as I was.

This understanding opened up something in me. Accepting Christ’s look on my life enabled me to really face up to what I had to lay down in him in order to be freed from it, so that I could then seek paths of communion once again with the people I had hurt, to enter more deeply into prayer, to give thanks for the love that God had shown me in him.

Perhaps some of you have had a similar experience this week. Now what counts is going home and continuing to live from what you have received. That is not easy, but this morning we listened to the calling of the prophet Jeremiah. This text can serve as an encouragement to you all.

Jeremiah understood that God was calling him. But he felt too young to respond to what was being asked of him. God replied to him saying “Do not say, “I am only a boy”, (…) do not say I am afraid, for I am with you.” (Jr. 1:6-8). And then God touches the mouth of Jeremiah to give him the words that he will need to say. Like for Jeremiah, the path ahead for you might not be easy, but can you live it in the trust that God goes with you?

As I noted in the Letter “Hoping beyond all hope”, Jeremiah then went further. At a time when his country was devastated by war and its inhabitants threatened by exile, and though he was himself in prison, the prophet Jeremiah made an investment in the future: he bought a field, so sure was he that God would not abandon his people (Jr 32:6-15).

Which field are you being asked to buy as a sign of hope in the society around you? Even if we think we are very young, there is so much we can do, especially if we can do it with others. And that is what life in the Church can be about. Living in communion with others who are seeking Christ and daring to take risks to become pilgrims of hope where God calls us to be.

Tomorrow evening, come and join us at 8pm in the church as we pray in silence for peace in our world. There is so much violence in our societies and in many different countries. Innocent people are suffering the injustices of war. Two of our brothers are in Eastern Ukraine at the moment – they are in the night train from Zaporizhia to Odesa et this very time. We will also be returning to Lebanon after Easter. We remember the people of Gaza, of Myanmar, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Lasting peace is not possible without justice for all, especially for those who suffer. Faced with these situations, we often don’t know what to do, but standing in silence before God can be a sign of solidarity with these people and of our desire to do what we can for them. And who knows, perhaps during this silence we will receive insights that will spur us on to live out this solidarity in concrete ways, to become pilgrims of peace.

And at the end of the year, those of you who will be 18 or over are invited warmly to join us in Paris and the surrounding region for our European Meeting of Young Adults. During this Jubilee year of hope, it will be a sign of our desire for peace and fraternity in all our diversity.

Many of you will remember the World Youth Day in Lisbon almost two years ago. At that occasion, Pope Francis said that “Todos, todos, todos” (“for everyone, everyone, everyone”) was welcome in the communion which is the Church. Now he is not so well. Yesterday I wrote to the Pope and told him that I would ask the young people gathered in Taizé to pray for his health. So let our next song be for Pope Francis and please continue to pray for him as you return home.