DE COLORES Make a Friend, Be a Friend and Bring a Friend to Christ Saint of the Month - Saint Anne Line - Februar y 27 She was an English martyr. The daughter of William Heigham, she was disowned by him when she married a Catholic, Roger Line. Roger was imprisoned for being a Catholic and was exiled and died in Flanders, Belgium. Anne stayed in England where she hid Catholic priests in a London safe house. In this endeavor she aided Jesuit Father John Gerard until her arrest. Anne was hanged in Tyburn in 1601. Pope Paul VI canonized Anne Line in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Hello Cursillistas. Our newsletter is back! After a hiatus, it is being announced that the Diocese of Scranton s Quarterly Newsletter is returning. But it can only continue with your help. That help is to supply interesting articles, events or points of interest that can be shared with all of us. If you have something to share, please email or call Pat O Reilly at snuffpat@aol.com or 570-872-8630 1
Is your Cursillo weekend in the far distant past? Have you neglected your Fourth Day? Perhaps it's time to reenergize yourself by attending Cursillo events. Perhaps your grouping has suffered lately; now is the time to think about restarting it or looking around for a new group. Perhaps your prayer life is a little flat lately; now might be the time to rededicate yourself to the three-legged stool of Prayer, Study and Action which was discussed on your weekend. Study -- daily. Action develop a plan and stick to it. Prayer -- daily. We hold Ultreyas monthly in various churches in the diocese, isn't it time for you to attend one? Isn t it time you try to host one? Contact Tim Everdean for guidance - ttim19@aol.com. A weekly group reunion and monthly Ultreya where the groups gather together could re-energize you to bigger and better things. Ultreyas and group reunions are open to everyone, so why not think about bringing your prospective candidates to one of the next ones? Check out our calendar here on the newsletter. A Visit to the Blue Army Shrine from Marie Payne Some time ago, I visited the National Shrine to the Blessed Mother in Washington, New Jersey. It was a beautiful day and we started out for our car ride as a group of three expecting to enjoy our own company. When we arrived at the shrine, we turned into a group of 16. All of us Cursillistas from the Diocese of Scranton. We prayed the rosary together; we availed of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and then attended Mass. When we were finished, we gathered around for lunch in the beautiful outdoors of the shrine. We had a table of plenty with foods we all brought to share. Everyone was full but the satisfying feeling came not from out feast but from the deep faith that we just shared. Love was around our picnic table and we all felt the embrace of God and His Mother. Our concluding phase of our blessed day was to use Father Phil s special question What are you grateful for today? This is the question he asked at the end of every gathering and we borrowed it from him that day. Each one of us said our reply and after many, there were tears of joy and love. This visit happens twice a year.keep a watch of the newsletter and emails for planned dates. 2
Who are the Secretariat? The governing body of the Scranton Cursillo Movement is called the Secretariat and its members are entrusted to ensure the progressive spiritual conversion of the entire Cursillo Community. Eduardo Bonnín ( founder of Cursillo) has been quite specific about his definition of what the Secretariat should be focused on. He says; "Cursillo is not to feed people but to make them hungry for God". "The Secretariats exist in order to simplify, facilitate and make possible the living of everything that is fundamentally Christian and to be the guardians of the purity of the method." The members of the Secretariat are the servants of the servants; their role is simple service to the Movement. The Secretariat iincludes Spiritual Director, Lay Director, School of Leaders Chairperson, PreCursillo Chairperson, Cursillo Chairperson, PostCursillo Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer. Each letter, we will be give a description of each position. We will start with Spiritual Director. As per Bishop Bambera s direction, Scranton Cursillo s Spiritual Director is Fr. Phil Sladicka. He is Pastor of Queen of Apostles Parish in Avoca. Fr Sladicka offers us his unending guidance, support, inspiration and leadership in keeping Cursillo strong and true in the Diocese of Scranton. We are blessed to have him as our Spiritual Director. 3
From your Lay Director I love the bible verses from the beginning of the gospel of John, especially. All things came to be through him and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life and this life was the light of the human race, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it." This light arrived over 2000 years ago and no darkness has overcome it! A few days ago we celebrated Christmas, recognizing this light's arrival into our darkness. I wonder how are we Cursillistas using our Christ light to dispel darkness in our world? Are we answering God's call to BE light? Am I? I was blessed to make my Cursillo in 1994. I started attending group reunion shortly after making my Cursillo and have been grouping ever since. Group Reunion is a blessing in my life and has helped me in my faith journey. My Cursillo sisters and I are companions on the journey together and we have helped each other through many difficult times both spiritual and physical. There are other Cursillo gifts that help my Christ light stay bright, Ultreya and School of Leaders. School of Leaders isn't a "class" like a traditional school, I think it is more like a school of fish, companions to help each other reach our destination. This 'school' doesn't graduate "leaders", as our leader is Jesus, so this school is made up of followers of Jesus trying to follow him into eternity. I invite all Cursillistas to attend your school of leaders, it is held monthly at various sites listed on our website. I invite you to join a group, or form one. These 2 gifts from Cursillo are bringing light into a world that needs it and we need YOUR light to help ours grow brighter. No, darkness hasn't overcome Jesus' light and it never will, however Christ has no body now but yours here on this earth..., can you help him spread more light? Please join your Cursillo family and come and see how bright our world can be. Decolores and a Blessed New Year, Nancy Lynn. 4
Cursillo: A Gift That Keeps on Giving from Monsignor Father Ed Straub On the recent retreat, the 69th Women s Cursillo, I met a wonderful Spiritual Advisor, Sr. Mary Eleanor Thornton. She came up to me one day on the weekend, pleading Oh Father, could you help me out. I have no priest for the Mass on the weekend of the 31st of December, at the prison where I am chaplin? When I checked my calendar and told her yes. She said Oh Father, you don t know what a help that is to me.now what about January, February and March? I said Sister, I m retired. Of course the irony struck me that she is in her 80 s, a full time chaplain, working this weekend with me and I m only 77. And so I said, OK, once a month. But then when I reflected on what I had said yes to in my head at first, I thought: it will be the middle of the Christmas Season and I will be speaking to men in prison. Of course I will have the Word of God, which I had not yet consulted. And I will be celebrating the Lord s Supper not with prisoners but with my brothers and sister, Mary Eleanor. Yet I had some anxiety. So at the Mass, I began by telling them about my initial anxiety of being there and how Sister Mary Eleanor reeled me into this, to which they all laughed. But I told them of what came to me, hopefully after reflecting from my heart on having said yes, as Mary, the Mother of the Lord is teaching us all to do today reflect on your life from your heart. If Mary could teach her Son, she could teach us. And notice she doesn t teach just in words but by what she does in and with what her life brings her. 5
So I began by telling my brothers, some 40 or 50 men, in their late twenties to late sixties, I imagine, of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich was an Evangelical Lutheran Pastor and Theologian, who was arrested by the Nazis for his involvement in an attempt on Hitler s life. He would spend two years in prison until he was put to death by the Nazis, lest as they were losing the war, he might be freed by the allies. In those years in prison, he was tortured and starved; the warden in the winter months ordered the lights turned off as well as the heat. Bonhoeffer spent two Christmases in prison and he was able to smuggle out of the prison a letter each Christmas to his family and friends. They have been preserved and you can read them. He begins by telling how in this place he has for the first time in his life experienced the real meaning of Christmas. How is that possible? Maybe Mary, the Mother of the Lord and Brother, gives us a clue in today s Gospel. Notice it tells us that she kept all these things, all that had happened to her and what she heard and saw, reflecting on them in her heart. (LU. 2:19) Notice she pondered them in her heart and her head. If you know anything about your head, you know how often it keeps us spitting in the soup of your own life and relationships. Maybe that s what happened to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Maybe he was able in that place to move from his head into his heart, his deepest core, which is our deepest core as well as he was able to find the real meaning of Christmas in his heart. One of the things the sacred text tells us is what Mary and others heard from the shepards. It was something of good news of great joy that is for all people. You will find a child, something so vulnerable, yet beloved for it is wrapped in swaddling clothes. And this beloved child if you find him, you will find him in a manger, an eating trough, which in the ancient language means eat. For this life is for the nourishment of the world. And have we all not been fed by His life, our life long? My brothers, why are you at Mass today, could you not find something else to do or of interest to you? And if you come on some regular basis, why? To be fed possibly from what was in a manger, some almost 2000 years ago? 6
And to you my sisters and brothers who might be reading this, what brought you to Cursillo? And keeps you at Mass? And the Sacraments? And this Child could not be born in an inn. I was on my way somewhere else. Even if by circumstances, you have to stay in a motel or inn? Any time I have stayed at a hotel or motel or an inn. I was on my way somewhere else. Even if by circumstances, you have to stay in a motel or inn, its temporary. This child is God With Us in our humanity. He is not going anywhere he came to be with us and a part of our human life. And so he will grow, work and walk this earth; pray and teach; be part of a family, make friends, enjoy eating with friends and family, and suffer; be betrayed, abandoned, misunderstood, hurt, hated, insulted, made to suffer and die, as we all have and will. Remember as He hung on the cross, some of the crowd mocked him, if you are the Son of God, come down off the cross and we will believe in You. That s a real good con line, is it not! No, this Child had to be born on the ground, not in an inn for He is not going any where, He is here to stay with us, with all of us. He is Emmanuel, God with us even unto death, each one of us, at our death. That is unconditional love, from a once vulnerable infant, like us all once, even unto and into our death. Maybe that was some of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew not just in his head but deeper, in his heart where we are closest to God. If in your head you are wondering what has this to do with Cursillo? Everything. For me, for all the cursillistas who have been on Cursillos with Sr. Mary Eleanor, for the men in the state prison. It is about, God with us. 7
Upcoming Cursillo Events Weekends Mens 59th Cursillo - March 30 to April 3rd - Tony O Reilly, Rector Womens 70th Cursillo - October 5 to 8th - Kathy Ostrowski, Rectora School of Leaders Sunday, January 22, 2017 - Queen of the Apostles, Avoca - 2:00 pm - Conversion of St. Paul Mass/Commissioning of Rector/a and Remembrance Mass, followed by a Pot Luck Social in the Rectory Basement. Saturday, February 4, 2017 - Queen of the Apostles, Avoca (9:30-11:30) - School of Leaders Saturday, March 4, 2017 - St. Eulalia, Roaring Brook/Elmhurst (9:30-11:30) - School of Leaders Ultreyas Sunday, January 15, 2017 - St. Patrick, Milford, 2-4 pm - Ultreya Sunday, February 12, 2017 - St. Luke, Stroudsburg, 2-4 pm - Ultreya Sunday, March 12, 2017 - St. Luke, Stroudsburg, 2-4 pm - Ultreya ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the heart of the Cursillo Movement is personal contact with others. While this Newsletter may provide information, Cursillo is about the personal interaction among the friends of Christ. Engage your friends in the joy of living the life of grace. DeColores 8