Bro. Ryan Carlsen, A.A. helps out a couple of times a week, either serving food or helping tp prepare it, at the Xavier Center, which is attached to St. John's Parish in Worcester. Some volunteers who staff the kitchen serve 6 days a week. The 400-500 daily guests come in to get some free food and leave knowing that there are people who care.

The Story of Taize:

Taize is a small village in western France about 50 miles from Geneva, Switzerland

Brother Roger, a Protestant, founded a small monastery in the village in 1940 following the defeat of France by the Nazis. He wanted to create a refuge for people who were devastated by the Nazi invasion. He also wanted to create an environment where people of different faiths and views to come together to find ways to honor their differences and to find reconciliation and unity where that was possible. It is one of the few monasteries in the world where Protestant and Catholic men live and pray together as monks. Taize is a site of pilgrimage where over 100,000 young people per year, both Christian and non-Christian, come as pilgrims for singing, silence, and devotion.

 CONVERSATIONS AT THE CENTER - OCTOBER 20, 2019 - PDF file

 NOTES FROM The President's Desk - PDF file