The History Of The Cursillo Movement*

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.

ANTECEDENTS.
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.

SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CONTEXT.
Spain, in the early 30's had an anticlerical and an Anti-Christian government. Very militant, this government was encouraging the youth to be aggressive and atheistic in education and in family life. The Church was subtly attacked. The Young Men's Catholic Action wanted to show the whole Spanish world that faith was still alive and could be influential in daily life. They decided that a great pilgrimage to Compostella would be a visible way to oppose anti-Christian forces and consolidate and channel the Christian energy of the young people. 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 honor 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 centered 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 organization. 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.

MALLORCA EXPERIENCE.
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 fervor 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.

A PROVIDENTIAL MAN.
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 of ten 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 favorable 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 centered 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 mold 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.

FIRST CURSILLO AS WE KNOW IT.
Eduardo Bonnin is an articulate 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 favorite 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 coordinated 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.

CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME FROM PRISON?
A group of young men from the Spanish Catholic Action movement were attempting to renew the church in Palma, Majorca, Spain in 1949. - to get people, especially me, more involved and to counter the non-Christian world they were living in with its rise of secular values. They had worked long and hard, but all their efforts floundered. Each attempt seemed worse than the one before. They were at the point of giving up. Then one evening, one of the men who had been working to develop the program received an unexpected call from the chaplain of the local prison asking for a couple of volunteers to come to the prison and help with a difficult problem. Two young men were to be executed the next day, but they would have nothing to do with the chaplain. The chaplain thought perhaps a layman could reach them. The man who received the call was frightened at the prospect of entering a prison, but after considerable prayer, he called a friend to join him in responding to the chaplain's call. Neither man had ever been in prison, but they agreed to come. As the two men entered the cell, they encountered the condemned pair playing cards and gambling with the guards. Prison rules declared that two guards must stay in the cell with the condemned men on the last night before execution. Their cell was littered with pornographic magazines and pin-ups. The condemned men seemed bent only on swapping dirty stories and gambling the night away. One of the two men the chaplain had called was Eduardo Bonnin. He asked for permission to let them take the place of the guards. When this had been granted, they began talking to the prisoners, listening to their stories. Gradually, they won the prisoners' confidence and eventually, Eduardo said to them: "We came here to ask a favor of you. "At this point, the two men laughed loud and long." A favor? Don't you realize that later this morning we ..." and made a gesture of being executed. "But there is something you can do," said Bonnin. "We only wanted you to recommend something to the Lord for us. You are the only people we have met who know when they will meet the Lord face to face. Neither the Pope nor rulers nor rich nor poor know when they will meet God, yet you do. We want you to say something to Him. We feel it is so urgent. We have this wonderful project from which we expected great fruits, but so far we have failed miserably to get it going. We want you to ask the Lord to help us. "And Bonnin proceeded to explain their hopes and anxieties concerning the program. As the night worn on, they spoke of Christ and His love and mercy. They spoke of how the good thief had "stolen" heaven, and they talked about forgiveness. In the early hours of the morning, the chaplain heard the confessions of the inmates and held a private mass. The two inmates, Bonnin and his friend all received the Eucharist. One of those men wrote to his family that night, and this is a translation from the Spanish:

When invited to have breakfast with the condemned men, Bonnin could not eat. He was two nervous. A short while later, they were led to the execution. One of them cried out for Eduardo Bonnin, and Eduardo told of how that man died, holding Eduardo's crucifix in one hand as Eduardo knelt beside him, praying for him. The executioners placed the hood over the man's head and affixed the chain that would break his neck with a sudden jerk. These two inmates were executed in January 1949. The project that Eduardo Bonnin and his companions had in hand, and that they were unsuccessful in launching despite all their trials and efforts, was referred to as "Cursillos de Christiandad". Surely we can conclude that Jesus said to them as He said to the thief who was crucified with Him "Today you will be with me in Paradise." Bonnin still wears the cross the young condemned man held at his execution.

FIRST OFFICIAL CURSILLO
Before the first numbered official Cursillo of January 7-10 1949, there had been five other Cursillos. Cursillo, in its beginning, 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.

CONCLUSION.
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 charisma) for His Church is the way for the Cursillo Movement to renew itself; to revitalize 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, Oh Lord, for the gift of Cursillo and for your special messengers called our founders!. Fr. Gaston Rioux, O.M.I.**

THE NEW WORLD
1.     In 1957, Two Spanish airmen, who were in this country for flight training, and Fr. Gabriel Fernandez, a priest from Spain who had made his Cursillo weekend under the direction of the founder, were responsible for putting on this first American Cursillo#1. I understand that for two years it continued to be in Spanish, and translation was done about 1959. Emmaus first weekend was in Peoria in May of 1977. The 20th anniversary celebration is scheduled for Peoria next spring, and Eduordo Bonnin, the first Cursillo Rector is one of the scheduled speakers. The National Capital Area Emmaus, started as a Methodist Cursillo, but joined with the Emmaus just prior to the first walks, at approximately the same time.
2.     Well, I've heard a couple of things, particularly about Via de Cristo. Our tradition has it that Cursillo was introduced into the U.S. via two routes - one in the S.W. through the Spanish-speaking communities in the RC church and another in Florida when a group of Spanish airmen on some exchange program held a Cursillo (again for the Hispanic community). The first English-speaking weekend was held (again in the RC church) in 1963, I believe, and rapidly spread. Via de Cristo began in Florida in 1971 and simultaneously in Iowa. A pastor in Florida (Ed Simonsen) had attended a RC weekend in 1970 and held a Protestant weekend the next year. I believe that was "Sonshine" No. 1. (which is still very ecumenical, though attached to the Via de Cristo). From Florida, it spread up the coast (Atlanta, N.C., Va., Md., Pa.) pretty rapidly, reaching the Washington D.C. area in 1978. I don't know the history of the Iowa group. Other branches of the Via de Cristo (particularly Arizona, I think) were offshoots of others branches, perhaps from the Episcopalians (I heard this once, I think).

THE FRENCH CONNECTION
The first French Cursillo has been held on October 1965 in Sherbrooke, a southern town of the province of Quebec (Canada). About 75% of Quebecers are French speaking and generally catholic but all other Christian denominations are also present. This first French Cursillo was animated by a Spanish priest, Father Jean Riba and a team composed among others by Cursillistas from New England's states. Since 1965, the movement spread in 23 French dioceses in 3 provinces of Canada (Quebec, Ontario, New-Brunswick)and 3 other French countries (Belgium in the midst of '80, Tahiti recently and Switzerland, but in this case I don't know when it came from Quebec). Nothing in France yet to my knowledge. Yet, 2,152 weekends of Cursillo have been held in French in Canada. For1996-1997, 70 weekends of Cursillo are planed. Now, there are nearly 400 active French communities. In 1990, there were 10,000 Cursillistas present at a national French Ultreya. For each diocese, a Council, an executive, a few committees and a secretariat coordinate activities. All French diocese's movements are sharing in French Cursillos' Movement of Canada (Mouvement des Cursillos Francophones duCanada -MCFC) which is lead by a board composed by diocese's executives. More, Cursillo gave 3 other movements: La Releve (Relief) for 15-17 years old, Reflet et Lumi re (Reflect and Light) for divorced-remarried couples and, finally, Aggiornamento (Update) for couples or singles who are or not Cursillistas. The later is only a weekend held under Cursillo supervision, the two formers are more independent movements.

There are also four Cursillo Spanish communities in Montreal. Finally, the MCFC is part of European Group of Work, one of four International Groups of Mondial Organization of Cursillo Movements. There are also English Speaking Groups, Latino American Groups and Asia-Pacific Groups. In 1995, we were 6 millions Cursillistas from 50 countries on 5 continents affiliated with Mondial Organisation of Cursillo Movement. I am not sure but I think this information concerns only catholic Cursillo movements.

I don't know who the author of this piece was but I believe him to be a RC Priest from Canada and apparently written about 1979 and updated in 1990. Alan McPeak, Lay Director of the Colorado Cursillo Secretariat