Common prayer is almost too consecrated an expression in English, and we might forget that prayer 'in common' is a fundamental aspect of the life of the whole People of God. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read how the first Christian community in Jerusalem met together every day for prayer as one expression of a total community of life. But the roots of Christian common prayer go back into the prayer of the People of Israel. Prayer as a People, prayer as a whole community, prayer as a microcosm of the Church universal: common prayer is a different exercise to the more-or-less silent waiting on God 'in our rooms with the door shut' which we are inclined to consider as the main form of praying. At Taize, the search for the visible unity between Christians has always been integrated in a life of prayer and community. Over the years, the Community has evolved a form of common prayer which is still only a provisional one. The search for what is most rewarding in the traditions of common prayer found throughout the universal Church has always been one aspect of a more general search for a living community not cut of from the world of the late twentieth century.