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The History Of The Cursillo Movement (Extracted from Canadian Conference of Catholic Cursillos {CCCC} Bulletin 17). Written by Fr. Gaston Rioux, O.M.I., the Spiritual Director of the CCCC, after a pilgrimage to Mallorca with founder, Eduardo Bonnin.
A MIRACLE IN THE MAKING
Changing the heart of human beings is something that only God can achieve. This is the great miracle of His kindness. In the time after Christ, God brought this about by using human messengers.
By weaving a network of love relationships, all opposition caused by selfishness, pleasure and power is overcome. In specific areas of Church history, God used new apostles to change the course of History according to His own plan of love. More than fifty years ago, Jesus Christ gave the gift of Cursillo to the lay people of His Church. Why to lay people? Because they are at the heart of the world as God's leaven.
What happened then? I would like to review briefly the history of the beginnings of Cursillo. The power of this gift has affected millions of people on earth and still does it in spite of our weakness and human limitations.
Cursillo did not come to the Church as a spontaneous creation. It was rooted in the human soil of Spain. We can trace it back to the call of Pius XI. He wrote an encyclical, in 1922, called Ubi Arcano in which he was inviting the laity to become true leaven of Christ in the human dough in order to counteract all anticlerical and Anti-Christian influences of the world of the `20s and `30s. This is how Catholic Action was born. In Spain, the most active wing of Catholic Action was the young men. A great Convention took place in December 1932.
At this gathering, it was decided to try' to stimulate the Christian faith in young people through a great pilgrimage to the Shrine of Saint James in Compostella, an important place of prayer and Christian renewal since the Middle Ages. It was to be a true experience and affirmation of faith in the face of militant atheism and non-belief on the part of those in public office. This pilgrimage was to take place on July 25th 1937, a feast day of Saint James.
Confrontation of the two camps in Spain lead to the civil war of 1936-1939 in which more than 500,000 people died. Today Christians honour thousands of martyrs who died for their faith. After the civil war, dechristianisation was everywhere. It deprived the Church of a great number of her faithful. The situation underlined a blatant religious ignorance, a superficial Christian life too often bogged down into ritualism and external appearances. However, Christian charity governed some convinced Christians. In 1941, this deplorable situation touched the hearts of many young men who remained faithful to Christ and His message. They decided to work at transforming this society without Christ into one that was centred on Him. They relinked with the ideal of the Young Men's Catholic Action. They asked themselves the question: "What should we do to become a leaven and to form Christians into instruments of the Gospel in the world today.
After reflection and prayer, they revived the idea of ten years previously, that of the pilgrimage of the young people to Compostella. They wished it to be an event of knowledge of faith, a deepening of the demands of faith and of a real commitment to Christ. This was to be an opportunity to share, to pray and to make gestures of brotherly love. To obtain good results, it was decided to prepare it through short courses (Cursillos) given for diocesan leaders of the pilgrimage and to group leaders. These Cursillos were in three parts: the first dealt with the knowledge of faith, i.e. grace, faith obstacles to grace, sacraments and life in grace; the second addressed the nature, leadership and the aspects of Catholic Action; and the third tackled all the things about the pilgrimage and its organisation. These Cursillos took place everywhere in Spain for many years. They lasted a full week. The pilgrimage took place, after many postponements, in July 1948. It gathered 70,000 young people from all of Spain and all of the south American countries. It was a success.
Of all the experiences during the preparation of the pilgrimage, one place took it with more seriousness with an "all out" attitude towards the "Cursillos": the island of Mallorca. Mallorca is one of the Baleares Islands. This island is a little bit out of the Spanish mainstream. Throughout its history it was independent, occupied for four centuries by Moslem Arabs of North Africa, re-conquered by the Spaniards, then by the French to become an independent kingdom with its own language, the Majorquin, half Catalan and half French. Mallorca, first Christian and then Muslim by invasion reverted to Christianity. Many statues of the Blessed Mother buried during the Muslim invasion were rediscovered four hundred years later and became very venerated on the island.
Around 1850, Mallorca experienced a great expansion of religious fervour due to the activities of the many saints, both men and women. Its faith deepened and took root through the light manifested in numerous charitable institutions. This very alive faith was sustained in Mallorca even during the `30s in spite of the great pressures from the government to introduce atheism everywhere, especially in the education system. The civil war touched mainly continental Spain.
The arrival of Catholic Action on the island mainly among the young people was an instrument which brought about change and improvement in their midst. They enthusiastically entered into the project of the big pilgrimage to Compostella. Five "Cursillos" were made in the context of Catholic Action at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lluc. There was a sense of excitement in preparing the pilgrimage. Their enthusiasm and the depth of their faith made them a numerous group radiating their convictions on the march to Compostella.
In Holy Week of 1943, a "cursillo" took place in Lluc. Eduardo Bonnin was a participant. Under the pressure of Jose Ferragut, an architect and one of his friends, he agreed to go. Eduardo came from a very Christian family often children. His father, an almond exporter, was afraid of the non-Christian influence prevalent even in the "so-called" catholic schools. His children received a good Christian education from a Christian tutor, closely supervised by him. Eduardo was, therefore, well protected from negative influences and anti-Christian education. His faith was deepened in a favourable environment. This gave to his family a priest and a Carmelite nun. In his teens, he began his compulsory military service which lasted for nine years.
During one of his holidays from the service he made his "cursillo". His experience in the army lead him to discover that the heart of man is good and that love is its motor: love given and love received and accepted. He discovered also the value of friendship and its beauty through life in the military quarters. This marked him for the rest of his life. He discovered also that faith helps us to be more human and happier. The human search is unsatisfied without God. Therefore he came to Lluc with his Christian journey already begun.
The enthusiasm, the simplicity of the Christian message in all its fundamental elements such as the motivation to be leaven, the joy of sharing and depth of prayer opened his eyes and his heart to much more. The idea of pilgrimage lead him to go beyond the pilgrimage to Compostella to embrace the concept of the pilgrimage to the Father to which we are all invited. In his reflection, he wished that the "Cursillos" be opened to all. That it be centred on the basics of faith but with all the enthusiasm and the joy of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. He thought that a full week for a cursillo was impossible to most people. He suggested a three-day week-end instead. In his "cursillo" and in the days that followed, he deepened an idea in his heart to have a better world.
Environments molds the intelligence, the heart and the life of a person. Each person has the right to be happy according to God's gift. To allow each person the opportunity to achieve his or her human and divine perfection, we have to restore the environments according to God's will. Eduardo presented the result of his thinking to a Catholic Action Leaders' School in Palma de Mallorca on December 8th, 1943. His talk was accepted as an integral part of the Catholic Action `"Cursillos" for young people. In the history of the "Cursillos in Christianity", this was the first rollo written of our actual Cursillo presentations.
Eduardo Bonnin is an articulated thinker, an apostle restless about a world without God, about unhappy people and Christians without joy. He is a Christian leader willing to conquer the world for Christ starting with himself.
In the Young
Men's Catholic Action of Mallorca he was in contact
and in friendship with many other Christians like
himself Eduardo loved to meet other young people to
reflect, to pray and to plan a way to make a more
Christian world. He was convinced that the
ignorance about faith was the source of a godless
world. He invited six others to join him.
Together they started a systematic study of the
Gospels with assignments, under the supervision of Fr.
Gabriel Segui, M.S.C. He corrected their
homework every week. They felt that it was
important to know Christ and His message better before
speaking about Christ to others. The situation
in the world and in the Church was worrying
them. They decided to pray together by going to
mass early in the morning. Moreover, knowing
their environment was a key topic for their study,
every' Sunday, the seven founders cycled to a quiet
place and under the leadership of Eduardo, each one
would go and sit under a tree and read a chapter from
a book, either from a theologian or a
sociologist. Their authors were the most leading
Christian thinkers of their time. After a
period of study, they would all come to share
together their discoveries. An apostolic action
has to be well grounded to be efficient. Here
are their favourite authors: Romano Guardini, Jacques
Leclerc, Eves Cougar, Pierre Charles, Michele Federico
Sciacca, Card, Suhbard, etc... To these they
added philosophers, psychologists and
sociologists. When one wants to do a good job,
one must study well. Concurrently, the seven
were involved in their faith in the name of Christ and
in their own environments.
In searching for a solution to remedy the ignorance of faith, the superficiality of ritualism and the apathy of non faith commitment in daily life, they decided to make their own form of Cursillo". At the beginning they did not look for a name but for a real format for this weekend. The first rollo was already done: the study of environment. To permeate environments and make them Christian, they started to reflect on other topics to be developed so that a good in-depth survey of the truths of faith would be well covered, in order to bring true growth in faith and effective commitment to Christ. All rollos as we know them, in the same order, were presented on the first Cursillo. The weekend was lived in a little chalet near the Mediterranean Sea at a place called Cala Figuera de Santanyi, from August 19 - 22, 1944. There were 14 candidates. All the priests' rollos were the same ones Eduardo heard on his "cursillo" in Catholic Action. The success was tremendous. Eduardo and his friends co-ordinated and directed the weekend. The priest came for the spiritual rollos, mass and confessions and did not stay on the premises. The "retreat" part of Thursday night to Friday morning was added a few years later under the influence of Fr. Juan Capo. In the beginning all new Cursillistas were integrated right away into permanent group reunions to accelerate their permanent conversion and their spiritual growth.
Before the first numbered official Cursillo of January 7-10, 1949, there had been five other Cursillos.
Cursillo, in its beginnings, was targeting those far away from God and the Church.
The seven founders, in looking around, noticed that all the practicing Catholics were well taken care of spiritually. In their apostolic zeal, They saw that nobody cared about the faraway. So they decided that they would reach out to bring them to God. In their reflections on the person and the best means to reach them, they discovered that friendship i.e. unconditional love for the other, was the way to the heart and to conversion. "Make a friend, be a friend, and bring our friend to Christ" is the strategy they followed.
In January 1949, Bishop Juan Hervas, bishop of Palma de Mallowa decided to open Cursillo to more people outside Catholic Action. This first year, thirty Cursillos were held. This avalanche created a problem. The new Cursillistas were too numerous to be integrated into permanent groups, so Eduardo invented the Ultreya. Ultreya is the place to accelerate the conversion started during the three days, where one receives the love that maintains the growth effort and also stimulates apostolic commitment. The Ultreya is a happy place, filled with joy, enthusiasm and where each is at the service of the other and at the service of the world in evangelization. Ultreya is also the place where one makes friends and finds a permanent group reunion.
The history of the beginnings of Cursillo is a sacred history. We read with amazement the vitality and the growth of Christianity as told in the Acts of the Apostles. Cursillo is a modern version of the Acts. In their study and prayer for finding a way to make a difference in the world of their day, the founders were looking for a way to change the world. They found it in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. In studying their society and the one of the first Christians they were surprised to find so many similarities. They said to themselves "If the first Christians succeeded in changing the pagan world in which they lived, we can change ours using the same means. Let us go back to charity between us and recapture the same enthusiasm in the service of Christ." Jesus said "Love one another as I have loved you" John 15, 12. This worked so well that the pagans themselves saw it and said: "See, how they love one another". The Acts detail all they did, it is up to us to do likewise".
Cursillo is the experience of the first Christians for the world of today. To recapture for ourselves the gift of God (the charism) for His Church is the way for the Cursillo Movement to renew itself; to revitalise and to become more efficient in today's world. All the power of God is attached to His gift. To stay away from it would be to deprive the Movement of the power of the gift of the beginnings.
Glory to You, 0 Lord, for the gift of Cursillo and for your special messengers called our founders!
Fr. Gaston Rioux, O.M.I.
