Some years ago our two oldest daughters ask my wife and I to attend weekend retreats called Cursillo that were sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. After some foot dragging, we finally did, not aware of how much those weekends were going to change the course of our lives. I was deeply moved by the events of the weekend and like any good scientist was obsessed with trying to find out why the weekends had such a profound effect on a regular old church member like me. So I studied the Cursillo movement and finally concluded that the weekends were the finest example of Christian education I had ever seen. Cursillo was originated by some Catholic laymen on the Island of Mallorca off the coast of Spain shortly after World War II and has since spread to many different denominations. The name Cursillo is an abbreviation for Cursillo de Christiandad which translated into English means “A Little Course in Christianity.”
My wife and I were so impressed by the beauty of the Cursillo weekends that we helped bring Via de Cristo, the Lutheran version of Cursillo, to our area and served on many of the teams that presented the weekends during the first ten years. In 1998 we had a chance to go to Mallorca and spend an afternoon with Eduardo Bonnin, one of the founders of Cursillo. If someday, someone asks you to attend a weekend Christian retreat with a Spanish sounding name and it appears to be connected with Cursillo, I encourage you to do it. It will help you understand how much God loves you.
Robert C. Frank
Author of Christ’s Team
