Chapter 7: Hospitality in Madrid

From the 28th of December till the 1st of January we joined the 41st European Youth Meeting of Taizé, in Madrid. Every year, between Christmas and New Year, the brothers of Taizé are invited to spend these days in one of the major European cities. Together with the brothers, thousands of young pilgrims, like us, from all over the world come together to pray in this city. The pilgrims are welcomed in the different churches and sleep these days at a host family. 

Even though we’re not in a monastery, we join the brothers in prayer three times a day. In the mornings in our host church; in the afternoon in several of the major cathedrals of the Madrid and in the night everyone together in a huge conference center, IFEMA.

We could join the meeting two days earlier, to help with all the preparations. Gideon joined in the choir to prepare and practice the songs; and Irma helped one of the host parishes, Nuestra Señora de Sagrada Corazon, to prepare the welcome together with Lukas from Germany and Manolo, the priest of this parish. Because we worked in two different teams, we were also assigned to two different host parishes and families, which meant that we would suddenly have a lot less time to be together the coming days.
Gideon was welcomed by Theresa, an elderly woman, and her brother, Javier. Even though they didn’t have a lot of space, they invited Gideon in. Because, it only takes 2 m² to host a person.
Together with Lukas, Irma was welcomed at the home of Juan Pedro and Silvia, and their kids Paco and Pablo. This family was very welcoming and we enjoyed our time together. For them, this meeting was the first time they got in contact with the community of Taizé and they were very interested in our experiences. They also went to the prayers a few times.

We were very happy to see some familiar faces again. One of them is Lukas, who we met last November. He is now volunteering in Taizé for a longer time and during this meeting he worked really hard for food distribution. Thus we didn’t see him long, but promised to give him a hug every day that we saw him, to make his work more pleasant. We spend most time with Kim, from the UK and Yasha, from Ukraine, two girls that Gideon met in choir different years. They also came earlier to join the choir this time and from the first day when we introduced them to each other, it was nice to be together. It was great for Irma to get to know them and for Gideon to get to know them better. During a week in Taizé it’s easy to connect to people, but during this time in Madrid we really got to share more about our life stories. In the beginning they were people we liked, but a precious friendship blossomed after this week. These meetings are also a good place to meet new people, and our days in Madrdid wouldn’t be complete without meeting Miriam, a German girl from Australia who is currently living in The Netherlands. Together with Kim and Yasha, the five of us often ate together and we had a good time together. Miriam also sung in the choir.

At a certain point everyone left for the choir and Irma didn’t want to say goodbye already. Kim said that it would probably not be a problem to sit together. We talked a bit more about singing and how to learn it, and Kim convinced Irma to stay in the choir to see what it was like. Irma loves singing, but doesn’t know how to. For Irma this moment was really special, to be able to learn how to sing and get more confidence in it. During one of the songs she heard how her voice mixed with the other voices and the instruments, and it touched her that her voice contributed to the beautiful song.

Of the many beautiful moments that we had, we want to share with you how we celebrated New Year’s Eve. This evening started with the last evening prayer in IFEMA. At the last prayer, the city where next year’s European meeting will be revealed: Wrocław in Poland. So all the Polish people went completely crazy.

After this prayer we went back to the parish where we were hosted. Gideon was hosted in a different parish, but for this evening he went with Irma to her parish. Around eleven o’clock we held a prayer for peace in the world. One of the ladies of the parish was so exited that there would be so many young people and she invited an elderly woman to join in the prayer. This was a beautiful way to live towards the new year.

According to Spanish tradition, on the strokes of midnight, we all ate 12 grapes, one every stroke. Manolo prepared about 100 cups of grapes for us. 12 grapes signifies 12 months of good luck in the coming year. Then it was time for a party. All the countries present in our parish presented a song, dance or piece of theater, typical for their country. So we had Polish folk dances, and Portuguese songs and even Egyptian music.

The next morning we celebrated a very special New Year’s mass. Before the mass, we had an interesting presentation and discussion about welcoming immigrants in Europe by an organisation called Karibu (Welcome). The people from this organisations, from different countries in Africa formed a choir together. So the mass was a collaboration of the parish, the pilgrims of Taizé and the choir. Which ended in a lot of singing, clapping and dancing.

In the speeches of Fr. Alois, the prior of Taizé, the returning theme was hospitality, the difficulties and limits of hospitality, but at the same time the blessing that hospitality can bring for everyone involved. And we experienced this blessing of hospitality during our stay in Madrid. We were welcomed by people that gave up a bit of their comfort and found joy in hosting us. Together with young people from all over Europe, we thought about the question, would we welcome people like we are welcomed here. And we would like to let you think about the same question:

Would you welcome pilgrims like we were welcomed?