Calendar
of Events
November 4-5, 2005
School of Leaders (quarterly reunion)-7:30pm Fri-3pm Sat, Sacred Heart,
Shelby
November 19, 2005
Secretariat Meeting - 10:00am, St. John the Baptist, Minden, NE
Postcursillo Reunion - 1:00pm (following Secretariat Meeting)
December 10, 2005
Secretariat Meeting - 9:30am, Blessed John XXIII Diocesan Center
January 7, 2006
Secretariat Meeting - 9:30am, Blessed John XXIII Diocesan Center
January 13-14, 2006
School of Leaders (quarterly reunion) - 7:30pm Fri-3pm Sat, Location TBA
in
Jan/Feb 2006 Newsletter … mark your calendars now.
February 3-4, 2006
Practice Weekend, Sacred Heart, Hebron
February 9-12, 2006
Men’s Weekend, Sacred Heart, Hebron
February 23-26, 2006
Women’s Weekend, Sacred Heart, Hebron
March 11, 2006
Secretariat Meeting - 9:30am, Location TBA
Quarterly
Reunion
November
4-5, 2005
220
S. Walnut
Sacred
Heart School, Shelby, NE
Is Christ tugging at your heart to serve Him through Cursillo?
Let God use YOUR time/talent/treasure to do the work of Cursillo ... to build community with other cursillistas ... to spend time in prayer and meditation with the Blessed Sacrament. The SOL Quarterly Reunion is for ALL cursillistas!!
+ FRIDAY, November
4th (Retreat Phase)
7:30pm
--- Registration (NO Meal Friday evening)
7:45pm
--- Mass
8:30pm
--- Meditation, confessions, quiet time
+ SATURDAY, November
5th (Agenda for SOL)
7:00am
--- Morning Prayer and Mass, followed by breakfast
8:30am
– 3pm Group Reunion; intro; 2-3 sessions of SOL; and lunch
3:00pm
--- Clean up and depart (Supper not provided)
+ Please Note:
Welcome New Fourth Dayers (October 2005,
St. John the Baptist, Minden)
October 9, 2005: Jerome Clyne, Fr. Christopher
Goodwin, Fritz Kain, Dan Pospisil.
October 23, 2005: Lorraine Beil, Katherine
Lahowetz, Allison Richtarik, Jean Sughroue.
*** Welcome to the 4th Day! *** As
you returned to your environments (which were just as you left them), did
you recognize people who would benefit from what you found during your
Three Days? Help them find Him too … Make a friend, be a friend,
bring your friend to Christ ... Remember that Christ is counting on you,
and you must count on Him!
Comments from a New Fourth Dayer (Fr. Christopher Goodwin, St. Mary, David City, NE):
“I entered my Cursillo Weekend
expecting to be spiritually nourished; and that I was. What I didn't expect,
however, was the extent to which I would be personally challenged. Yet,
often God's richest blessing comes precisely through what one neither expects
nor hopes for. The challenge I received to live out my life of authentic
holiness, formation, and evangelization was, to be honest, more than I
had bargained for; and I accepted this challenge with less than perfect
joy and enthusiasm.
However, as I prepared
on the third day of the Weekend to be greeted by many devout Cursillistas,
it dawned on me that God, in issuing the challenge, had also sent numerous
faithful and loving souls to help me meet that challenge with grace and
courage. That is what strengthens me to fulfill the task at hand in this
Fourth Day.
I also gladly welcome the
new incentive I have been given to pray, fast, and offer mortification
for others. I now know that there are always specific groups of people--candidates
and fellow Cursillistas--who are counting on my Palanca just as I was counting
on theirs.
United as we are in the
Spirit of Faith, Hope, and Love, we are a force to be reckoned with, which
is why we can cry with confidence in the Lord: ‘ULTREYA!’”
Directory Update … We are preparing an updated Cursillo Directory for the Lincoln Diocese. If your address, phone number, email, etc., has changed, please send that info to Kathy Springer, 1410 E 15th St, Crete, NE 68333 (ks90710@alltel.net). Updates should be sent no later than Monday, Nov. 14th.
Fall 2005 Region VI Cursillo Encounter … The Diocese of Lincoln hosted the Fall 2005 Region VI Cursillo Encounter at Sacred Heart, Hebron, NE, September 23-25, 2005. Region VI includes an eight state area. The lay talks for the Encounter centered on doing the work of Precursillo, focusing on ways to bring others to Christ and obstacles encountered along the way. Specifically, presenters discussed how Precursillo fits in to the whole … how Christian community is essential in all of our environments … ways to focus our efforts: how to study environments, then select persons who can have an impact on those environments. Fr. Rudy Oborny then talked about the spiritual dimension of the Precursillo: (1) the care and feeding of the cursillista (working on your relationship with God … being diligent in your sacramental life), and (2) preparing for the Precursillo by living the Good News first with those around you (love your spouse … love your children … try always to represent Christ to your neighbor). It is always good to join together with the larger Cursillo community to share ideas and lives … to share in the work of Precursillo. The Encounter was a great blessing … and a big “thank you” to ALL who helped!
Precursillo …
And … while we’re on the topic of Precursillo … we need to begin NOW
inviting candidates to the February Weekends. On a daily basis, we
should be making friends, being friends, and bringing friends to Christ
… Activity in the Precursillo should be planned … it should unfold gradually
and naturally, and not be “forced” at the last minute. Please ask
our Lord who He is calling you to prepare and invite … please respond …
Included in this Newsletter are application materials and a sponsor form.
Precursillo, cont’d
Comments from Chuck Micek, Precursillo Chair:
“I would like to welcome the women and men who lived their Cursillo Weekend in October 2005. May God be with you during your journey of faith and love of Christ during your Fourth Day.
“Each time I attend a Cursillo Closing, I remember my commitment to Christ, and what I need to do to fulfill the promise I made while living the Cursillo Weekend. I recently was reading in the Living Faith, (Catholic Daily Devotion Book), for Saturday, October 22, 2005, ‘You are in the spirit, if only the Spirit of God dwells in you’ (Rom 8:9).
“The meditation goes on to say: ‘Pope John Paul II said that “Life cannot find meaning without prayer.” Prayer awakens a sense of the Other, of God who listens with love. Many philosophies and lifestyles lay a claim to what is truly human and necessary for happiness — happiness usually understood as dependent on possessing something. The Pope was well aware of the allure of such beliefs and the painful dead-ends they lead to — particularly among the young and impressionable.
“‘Our only real sense of self is found in and through God. Prayer touches the likeness to God that is in us through the gift of the Spirit. Prayer awakens in us the divine presence and the voice of God. …’
“Also, in the Magnificat, the Scripture reading from October 22, reads in part (Rom 8:1-11): ‘Brothers and Sisters: Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death. For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do, this God has done: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for the sake of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live not according to flesh, but according to the spirit.’ A little later, Saint Paul says: ‘The concern of the flesh is death, but the concern of the spirit is life and peace.’
“I must continue to be mindful of how I live, according to the flesh or according to the Spirit? The life of the Spirit is my desire and the Cursillo Movement will assist me to live that life if I persist in it! I must continue to participate in Group Reunion and Ultreya, and to continue to remind myself that Christ is counting on me. The Group Reunion and Ultreya are not just meetings we attend, but they are the coming together for us to share in the Spirit, not the sharing in the flesh.
“Pray daily for the small Group Reunions and Ultreya
that take place in our Diocese … they allow us to remain and persevere
in the Life of the Spirit. Christ is counting on you!”
De Colores! Chuck Micek
Three Day Weekend ...
The October Weekends have now been lived and we press on in the Fourth Day … As part of what our Lord asks in the Fourth Day, we should be considering how we might bring persons in our corner of the world to Christ … and that might include bringing them to a Three Day Weekend. The Winter 2006 Weekends are now set, and are scheduled to be at Sacred Heart Parish in Hebron, NE:
+ Men’s - February
9-12, 2006
+ Women’s - February
23-26, 2006
In preparing/inviting candidates, please be aware that the next Weekends will not be held until Jan. 2007:
+ Men’s – January
11 - 14, 2007
+ Women’s – January
18-21, 2007
The location for the January 2007 Weekends has not yet been determined … however, you should be aware of these dates in case interested candidates cannot attend the February 2006 Weekends. Please note: There will be no Fall Weekends in 2006.
Postcursillo …
+ New Directory in the works …
+ Secretariat Visits to Ultreya Centers …The Cursillo Directory was last updated in April 2002. It is currently being revised and should be mailed by the end of November. Please send any corrections/updates to: Kathy Springer, 1410 E. 15th St., Crete, NE 68333 (email: ks90710@alltel.net) by no later than November 14th.
The Secretariat is continuing its visits to each Ultreya Center to encourage cursillistas throughout the Diocese to live the Fourth Day. It is always good to renew old friendships and make new ones. The Lincoln Ultreya visit is scheduled for Thursday, November 10th, 7 p.m. … please participate if you are able.
It is good to take part in neighboring Ultreyas … take note of the Ultreyas scheduled throughout the Diocese, as listed on the cover of the Newsletter, and consider attending …
School of Leaders (SOL) ...
for those interested in furthering the work of Cursillo …
The next quarterly SOL (see page 1) will be November 4-5,
2005, at Sacred Heart School in Shelby, NE.
We will be studying:
Please come ... SOL has no beginning or end ... it simply continues
to nourish and form ...
From the Lay Director ...
First off … welcome, new cursillistas, to the Fourth Day … to “valley duty” … Christ is counting on you, and you should count on Him!!
During the Sunday morning meditation, we heard about leaving the mountain-top experience and being ready for valley duty ... I like that term “valley duty” … it’s a very apt descriptor of how difficult the Fourth Day can be. Thank You, Jesus!! … Thank You for BOTH the mountain-top experience AND the valley duty!!
Valley duty can be challenging (to say the least) … but one aid in living valley duty is Cursillo’s gift of Group Reunion and Ultreya. These gatherings of cursillistas (the smaller Group Reunion and larger Ultreya) can be used in all three phases of the Cursillo Movement (Precursillo, Cursillo, and Postcursillo) to accomplish the tasks Christ is sending us out to do. One of the presentations at the Fall Region VI Cursillo Encounter (hosted by our Diocese in Hebron on September 23-25, 2005) gave me new insight into how Group Reunion and Ultreya can aid in accepting/meeting the challenges of valley duty.
The Precursillo is when the initial work or Cursillo is done … in “making a friend, being a friend, and bringing that friend to Christ” (‘initial’ because the process can take a very long time). It is in this phase that we prepare candidates for the Three Day Weekend … something we should be thinking about NOW (with Weekends only three months away). In studying our environments, we should look (with Christ’s help) for those persons who will decisively influence an environment … and that doesn’t necessarily mean the people in power. For example, in a high school, it may be the custodian or bus driver who has the most potential to influence the young people … so work on bringing the custodian or bus driver to Christ. Ask God to help you see with His eyes who it is that will win souls for Him … ask Him to give you the courage and grace to approach them on His behalf and to help them understand His mission for their lives … help them to make His mission their mission …
Just as the spine with its many vertebrae is the backbone of the human body, we should look for persons who are the vertebrae/backbone in various structures of society … those who have the capacity … with God’s grace … to help keep others alive in Christ and who can give direction. We need to help these people respond “yes” to our Lord’s call. We need men and women in the Church to be vertebrae … to function as leaders where God put them (it doesn’t matter if we think of ourselves as ‘leaders’ or not … the bony, pointy finger of God doesn’t much care what we call ourselves … He just needs the work done …). During and after the Weekend, I have talked to a couple of women who would like to change jobs, but they recognize that maybe the reason they haven’t been able to find something else is because God wants them right where they are. Sometimes that’s really difficult … valley duty … but that’s why the support of Group Reunion and Ultreya is so very important … We don’t enter into, or persist in, valley duty alone … He sends others … thank You, Jesus!!
Group Reunion and Ultreya are important in all phases of Cursillo: (1) in the Precursillo, they provide an organized way of discerning the environments that need to be evangelized (and that would pretty much be all of them!) and coming up with a plan to begin the work (with the help of our brother and sister cursillistas); (2) during the Three Days, the Group Reunion and Ultreya experienced on the Weekend help motivate and teach us (Group Reunion is the sharing in families throughout each of the Three Days, and Ultreya is the large group sharing of posters each evening); and (3) in the Postcursillo, Group Reunion and Ultreya give us a very real and natural way of facing the challenges that we encounter each day … a way of helping us to persist in leavening our environments in the midst of valley duty. The method of Group Reunion and Ultreya brings out in each of us the grandeur of our Christian being … we are living as the Apostles did 2000 years ago … in community and with the love of God and neighbor as our ideal …
Ultreya!! … Onward!!! … De Colores!! … Jesus lives in me, and I want others to know Him, too!!
De Colores!! Kathy Springer
From the Spiritual Advisor ...
This week, as we begin the month of November, we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints, and the Feast of the Poor Souls in Purgatory. If we want to be saints, then it would be helpful to learn from others who have already journeyed through this time and space and are now with our Lord in Heaven … it would be good to learn more about the saints, and to imitate their example.
On the little green “Regular Reunion Format” sheet that we use for our weekly Group Reunions, there is the question in the Formation section: “What have I read/experienced this week to help change my mentality to be more Christian?” As I have met in Group Reunions over the years, this has been the area that has been the weakest of the three for me. However, in recent years, with the encouragement and challenging of a friend with whom I group, I have been doing more formation and especially, more studying of the lives of the saints, and I have found it very helpful.
One of the saints whose life I have studied a little about is St. Therese of Lisieux, the “little flower”. She once wrote: “Humble self-knowledge is the beginning of sanctity.” As I study and learn more about the saints, often times, I find similarities between my life and theirs, especially in the area of weaknesses. The saints had weaknesses, too, but by responding to God’s grace, they were able to grow in virtue. In studying the lives of the saints, I also learn about their prayer lives and how they responded to God’s grace and allowed God to work in their lives … how they prayed … how they grew in their relationship or friendship with the Lord … that would be their piety or holiness. So, studying the lives of the saints has been a great way for me to get to know more about the saints and then to apply what they learned about the Lord and themselves to myself, and thus to get to know myself better. That helps to change my mentality to be more Christian.
The more that our mentality becomes like Christ’s, the more that Christ will be able to work through us and we will really be changing our environments and the world for the better. So, there is a great connection among the three legs of the tripod (Holiness, Formation, and Evangelization). The more that I have taken time to study the lives of the saints (Formation), the more I have learned about myself, and the more I have spent time in prayer and conversation with the Lord (Holiness). And the more I spend time in prayer (Holiness), the more my mentality is changed to be like His mentality (Formation), and the more that I am open to doing His work for His sake and according to His plan and not my own (Evangelization).
So, as we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints this week, and as we remember to pray for the repose of the souls of those who have died, I encourage you as I have been encouraged to take time to study the lives of the saints. Also, I encourage you to ask the saints to pray for you … that you may be holy. Further, do not forget to pray for those who have died, that they may be purified and be with our Lord in Heaven. That is the beautiful truth of the communion of the saints. Many of the saints became saints because they encouraged each other during their lives to spend more time in prayer (Holiness), to study more so they could better “put on the mind of Christ” (Formation), and to do His work wherever he put them (Evangelization). If you think about it, really they were meeting in Group Reunions and talking about their Piety (Holiness), Study (Formation) and Action (Evangelization).
So, we would do well to imitate the saints … we need to learn more about them and their relationship with the Lord so that we can encourage one another to be holy and to be open to the Lord’s forming us. Many others before us have become saints, and each one of us can become a saint by opening our minds and hearts to the grace of the Lord … by imitating the saints who have struggled to grow in holiness themselves … and by encouraging one another in our weekly Group Reunions and monthly Ultreyas.
De Colores!! Fr. Mark Seiker
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