SOUTH OGDEN — Peaceful reflection and an opportunity for individual prayer were the central themes of a Taize Worship service held Monday as part of the Interfaith Works! annual Interfaith Week festivities.

Nineteen participants attended a quiet, candle-lit ceremony at the Pleasant Valley branch of the Weber County Library featuring simple hymns designed to be viewed as prayers and periods of silence between the hymns and spoken prayers.

“Come fill our hearts with your peace,” sang those in attendance several times in repetition as the service began. “You alone, O Lord, are holy. Come and fill our hearts with your peace, Al-le-lu-ia!”

Those in attendance were invited to use a different name for their Deity when singing the hymns as they deemed appropriate.

Participants said the 45-minute service achieved what organizers said it would — put their minds at ease.

“The silence is really powerful,” said Rose Mary Kelley,of Ogden, who was a participant. “The silence and repeating the songs slowly and silently really made it.”

Kelley said she had never before attended a Taize Worship service but had long wanted to attend one, as she had heard about them on several occasions.

“It gives you inner peace,” said Delores Archuleta, of South Ogden, who attended with Kelley.

Taize Worship services are based on traditions of an ecumenical monastic order in Taize, France, according to organizers of the event.

About 100 brothers from 30 countries and a handful of different religious denominations make up the order that has been in existence since 1940.

Organizers said Taize, France, has become one of the world’s most important sites of Christian pilgrimage as more than 100,000 visitors go there each year to participate in the quiet services the brothers offer there.

Monday’s service included a written worship guide available to all who attended.

The worship guide offered a quote borrowed from one that adorns the entrance of the Church of Reconciliation in Taize.

“Be reconciled all you who enter here,” reads the quote, “parent and children; husbands and wives; believers and those who cannot believe; seekers and all who love God.”

The service also featured a reading of the Prayer of Intercession and Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,” states the prayer.

“Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

The event was led by the Rev. Nancy Groshart, of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd; Aloha Whitney, of Trinity Presbyterian Church; and the Rev. Diane Bell, of Community United Methodist Church.

Groshart said the team has received much positive feedback about the service.

She said they are considering offering it again next year as part of Interfaith Week.

Groshart encouraged those who are interested in attending next year to keep watch for advertising materials at Weber County libraries and in the Standard-Examiner religion section at the end of January and early part of February next year.