An Editorial that ran in, and is reprinted with the kind permission of,
The Catholic Free Press, Worcester, Massachusetts
written by Tanya Connor of St. Joseph’s Charlton, MA
Thursday night they were strangers, brought together from a variety of backgrounds, some with more enthusiasm than others. But long before the weekend concluded they were sharing their stories, embracing, ministering to one another. Team members ministered to candidates — and vice versa. Priests ministered to laity — and vice versa. And through that ministry, God took on skin. Unable to physically see or touch the Word-Made-Flesh (outside of the Eucharist), they saw and felt His love in each other.
That was one of the main objectives of the weekend — to experience Jesus personally, and to realize that Christian community is essential for that ever-growing relationship with the Living God. At times it was like a taste of Heaven, so great was the joy of hearing — and embracing — the Truth. The simple but unpopular Truth that Jesus is God, that God is for everyone and that Jesus is the radical and only solution to personal and world problems.
Given that, it couldn’t stop there. It wasn’t meant to be just a nice “me-and-God” weekend, history by Monday morning. It was meant to be lived — for life. And eternity. After all, Christian life requires not only correct worship and correct belief, but also correct action. Apostolic action, or evangelization. One hungry person showing another hungry person where to find the Bread of Life.
The weekend provided the tools to do that. Make Christ the center of everything you do, whether or not it’s explicitly religious. Pray as if everything depended on Him, act as if everything depended on you. Be a leader, leading others to Christ by first befriending them. Humanize and Christianize your home, work and social environments by bringing to Christ those who exert the most influence on others, those who will in turn make the whole atmosphere more Christian. When, by God’s grace, you have accomplished that, you will have Christian community, unselfish love, peace — the same things a group of Thursday-night-strangers had experienced by Sunday night.
Having completed the weekend, a person is not left alone in this monumental task. Weekly small groups and monthly larger groups offer a place to share prayer, support, successes and failures with like-minded Christians. There is also the special joy of introducing still others to this life-giving weekend, not as an end in itself, but as a means to The End — Christ.
That, in a nutshell, is what the 41st women’s Cursillo in the Diocese of Worcester — held at Oakhurst Retreat Center in Whitinsville last weekend — was all about. In fact, it is what all Cursillo weekends anywhere — for men or women, Catholics or Protestants — are supposed to be about. Not secrets or emotionalism or gimmicks, but basic, much needed truth, and the practical tools to live it.
Consider it.