Our fourth day magazine: The Tripod Study Piety Action Make a friend, be a friend and bring a friend to Christ Page 1
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR We are blessed to have this issue of The Tripod ready to e-mail out to the Cursillo community, and are confident The Lord will continue to bless our efforts to, bring others to a better understanding of God s grace and love, as we grow together in our Christian faith. We all have special, Godgiven gifts and talents. We can use them to help those around us into a closer walk with Christ and Cursillo. One of one of my favorite childhood hymns, Nothing is impossible when you put your trust in God, nothing is impossible when you re trusting in the Lord continues to inspire me. As we continue in our fourth day, please do not hesitate to reach out to secretariat members if you have questions or suggestions on becoming more fully involved with Cursillo. Page 2
The next issue of The Tripod will be out in March 2018, where we will introduce additional members of the MECM Secretariat to you. We extend a big thank you to Elgin Summerfelt for his dedicated work as our past MECM Director, and welcome Ellen Harland as our new Lay Director. Elgin has kindly consented to continue to serve on the Secretariat. De colores, Claudette Dear friends in Christ, It has certainly been a busy fall so far with MECM and, The Spirit is a'movin'! We have had 3 Ultreyas and a Day of Deeper Understanding, all of which were very well attended and received with very positive reactions and feedback. We are now looking forward to activities for the New Year. We will not be doing an Ultreya this Dec., as most people's calendars are over committed at this point. In Jan. 2018, we will Page 3
have our next Ultreya, with the location to be nailed down soon. Save Sat., Jan 20 for that! Stay tuned for the announcement. Please see Binki's article on The Servant community in this Tripod, and pray about whether this is something you could add your talents to. Also keep the team for the next weekend in your prayers. Although May 18 seems a long time away, putting together a team takes a lot of time and requires a big effort on the part of the Rector/a. This is at present in the formation stage, so prayers and palanca would be greatly appreciated. It is also not too soon to pray about being a sponsor for someone. Being asked to go on a weekend is a big blessing in someone's life. In today's complex world, people need plenty of time to plan if they want to attend, as it often means taking a Friday off from work. I pray that you each feel especially blest at this Thanksgiving season! For the Secretariat, Ellen Harland, Lay director Page 4
HOW IS YOUR TENACITY TODAY? By Jack Foster In September Kathye and I had a three-day mini-vacation at a guest house on the coast of Maine. One morning a man at the next breakfast table was wearing a tee shirt with the word RENACITY scrawled across the front. I was intrigued, and asked him what the word meant, so he told me this story. Recently their six year old granddaughter was being taught some new words to expand her vocabulary. Two of the words her parents were teaching her were tenacity and resilience. Later, when they asked her to repeat the words, all she could remember was renacity. She had combined tenacity, which you might call stick-toitiveness, and resilience, the ability to bounce back. All she could remember was a combination of the two words. He was so tickled by her response that he had the tee shirt made. Page 5
Hmmm... tenacity and resilience. These two attitudes are helpful in our fourth day faith walk. We want to be tenacious in our faith and actions, no matter what difficulties arise. And yet we have down times when we feel away from our Lord, and need resilience to bounce back. We want again to experience the joy of worship, the insight of study, and the adventure of action. As fourth day Cursillistas, our plan is to be steady in our piety, study, and apostolic action. But sometimes something gets in the way, and throws us off the track. It might be a temptation, a perceived insult, a setback in work or family, or even a happy event. It can be anything that directs our attention to this world and the issues we face in it, and takes our eyes off our Lord. A book on prayer I recently read gave this example: But what about those times that feel decidedly unspiritual when we have a confrontation with the children or a disagreement with our spouse, for instance? In any case, something distracts us, and we fall way. We slack off in that time of prayer, or omit that Bible reading, or don t make that call to someone who needs to hear from us. Page 6
What do we do? Just ride out the storm, and hope the days get better? This is where resilience comes in. It s the ability to recover and return to our fourth day practices. God recognizes we re off the track and guides us back. Our Lord can use many things to recapture our attention. Maybe help will come through the kindness of a friend, a Bible passage that speaks to us, a chance to show the Lord s love to someone else. Whatever it is, the resilience in our faith guides us, giving us the ability to return to the actions and practices that keep us close to our Lord. So, to have tenacity is to stick to our plan or beliefs or course of action. And to have resilience to bounce back to them when we go off track. My hope for you and for myself is that our Lord will guide us in continuing Renacity as we walk with him day by day. Ultreya, Jack Foster Page 7
Ellen Harland - Lay Director of the Secretariat My name is Ellen Harland and I am in my third year on the Secretariat. I am currently the Lay director. I made my Cursillo in February of 1984 and have been involved ever since. I have attended the Church of the Good Shepherd in Acton for over 40 years. I serve as a member of the Altar guild, as a lector, am in choir, and also am part of the Liturgical arts committee. I am married to Bill, also a Cursillista for 47 years, I have 3 grown kids and 3 grandchildren. I recently retired as an OB nurse and now am devoting my time to my family and to helping the Cursillo movement grow. Please feel free to reach out to me or any member of the Cursillo Secretariat if you have any questions and/ or suggestions, or would like to take part in and need additional information about any of the ongoing events and ultras that are planned regularly. Ellen Harland ballsquarebelle@yahoo.com Page 8
Hi, My name is Lisa Puls. I made my Cursillo in May 2006 at the Marist House in Framingham. I have served on 2 Rollo teams and on the service team several times. I joined the MECM Secretariat in June 2016, and am currently serving a three year term as the Assistant Lay Director for the MECM Secretariat, and am also the acting webmaster for the MECM website. Please call or email any one of the secretariat members if you have any questions. I have also included my phone number and email address at the end. DeColores! Lisa Puls 617-794-5816, lspuls@aol.com Page 9
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, Something is brewing in Eastern Massachusetts! The Holy Spirit is definitely at work. About a year and a half ago, a committed group of Cursillistas joined together to bring more frequent Ultreyas to the North and West of Boston. The plan was to hold them the third Saturday of the month from October through May. Participating parishes now include Gloucester, Chelmsford, North Billerica, Acton, and Leominster to date. Attendance is growing, and it is such a blessing to those attending. To gather in Ultreya nurtures the spirit and commitment we felt on our candidate weekends; also for those not currently in reunion groups, it offers not only community, a chance to meet others who might be looking for a group. The Spirit is moving and one feels that Cursillo is making a new case for its movement forward, and a commitment to renewal. DeColores! In His service, Rick Britton Page 10
Remembering Jerry Silva Many of us in the Cursillo community knew Jerry Silvia, who passed away earlier this year. We are so thankful and grateful that he shared his gift of music with us over the years and he is missed. We respectfully include his obituary in this issue of The Tripod: Jerry Silvia passed away at his home on August 22 with his beloved wife and his beloved pup at his side after living courageously with cancer. Jerry's 71 years were about family, love and generosity. To read more and watch a video with Jerry's final message, please go to You tube and look for Jerry Silvia or go to http://vimeo.com/ 230088011 A celebration of his life was held at the Episcopal conference Center in R.I. Jerry was also a long time Cursillista, and served for many years as the music coordinator for Cursillo Ministry. Page 11
A VOTE FOR JESUS Revised, 2017 By: Jack Foster During the last presidential election, a Cursillo friend told me about a cartoon they d seen. It was an election ballot with three boxes one for Clinton, one for Trump, and one for Jesus. The one for Jesus was checked off! I was intrigued by the cartoon, so looked up on the internet vote for Jesus. I was amazed at the number of posters, cartoons, tee shirts, and pins with that theme. One I particularly liked said For real change vote Jesus into your life. Now the race is over, and our new president is in office. Maybe you like that person and maybe you don t. As the election approached, I saw numerous emails and Facebook messages describing how one candidate was the only possible choice, that the other would lead our country into total ruin! Facts and false information spread instantly through the internet and social media, providing voters with a barrage of true and false information. Ideas and views, true and false, spread like wildfire across the media. And they still do! In the long run, we campaigned our hardest, insisting our favorite would be the best president. But now we accept the results and live with whoever is elected. That s the genius of the American elections. As Senator John McCain said, the peaceful transfer of power is the pride of our country. As Christians and Cursillistas, what do we make of the results? Some of us are thrilled, and others deeply disappointed. I have Christian friends on both sides of the political fence, so we can t all be right. What are we to make of this conundrum, that we have to accept what we deeply disagree with? It is easy to say the President should do this or do that, but what really matters is what we do to support the values most dear to us. Several Page 12
thoughts come to mind as we reflect on the results. First, Jesus lived in a hostile political environment. His instructions for our lives are true in any political or governmental situation. Our Christian beliefs and practices hold fast no matter who s elected and apply no matter what country we lived in. Second, God s in charge. The President isn t. This is not our final home. Allegiance to our President is temporal; our allegiance to our Lord is eternal. At a recent Ultreya, our theme was Jesus as Lord. We re called to follow him as Lord, no matter who the President is. As Christians and Cursillistas, we know that Jesus is our real leader. Did you ever think of Jesus as your President, the one who leads you through life? Maybe that s what it means to call him Lord!?! Third, we still have our Christian values and the ministries God calls us to. So let s get at them! We may not make the same decisions, but if each of us seeks to follow the Lord s leading, we re on the right path. If you believe in right to life, find a way to express it. If you feel compassion for the poor, but fear a Welfare society, find a way to express your compassion. If you fear war, work for peace. If your passion is immigration, learn about the new families in New England and how we can support them. We recognize that not everybody is happy with the results of the election. But we re grateful we live in a country where we re able to vote, and where we all abide by the results. Our responsibility is to touch our environments with acts of love, as our Lord leads us. Touch a life today. Be a person who s grateful to live in this country until we reach our eternal home. And, give thanks to God we have our Lord as our Leader! Ultreya, Jack Foster Page 13
Sue Curll, Member, The MECM Secretariat Hello, My name is Sue Curll, and I live in Lancaster MA. My home church is St. Marks in Leominster. I have been on Secretariat for over a year now, and it has been a pleasure serving the Cursillo community. In December of this year, I will also have completed Level One Healing Prayer through Christian Healing Ministries. It is a privilege to serve on the secretariat, as we continue to meet and plan for further events through the year. You can call or email any one of the secretariat members, so you can be directed to the right person to answer your question, or have something we can add to our discussion at our next secretariat meeting. De Colores, Sue Curll susancurll@comcast.net Page 14
BILL HARLAND, SR. INCOMING TREASURER TO THE SECRETARIAT My dear brothers and sisters in Christ. I made my weekend in January 1984. I have served as Rector once,have been on Rollo Team three times and Service Team four times. I have been actively working in our community for years. When asked to fill this position, I agreed. It was a simple decision, as I personally believe that it is God s calling, and I have always responded to Cursillo. I am a Fine Artist by profession, painting and teaching watercolor for a combination of forty two years, thirty one of which I have been teaching. My interests are, Traveling to my favorite painting locations, weekends with family, fishing in my boat, and celebrating with friends. I have been at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Acton, for 39 years. During that time, I have become a LEM B, served on Vestry twice, and several other ministries as well. I look forward to my experience as the Treasurer for MECM, and am honored to be elected to your Secretariat. B&E Harland harlandart@verizon.net Page 15
Claudette Chander Member, MECM Secretariat Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, As a member of the MEC Secretariat, I would like to introduce myself in order to better serve in this role. I am married, with two young adult children. and am both a teacher and a nurse. I have been involved with Cursillo for many years, both on team and as Music Minister, Music being an essential part of lifting our voices up to praise and thank Him for all our blessings. Our Father in Heaven is always listening. Thank you for this opportunity to serve you on the MEC secretariat. De Colores. I remain, In His service, Claudette Chander claudettechander0@gmail.com SERVANT COMMUNITY By: Binki Wright Dear friends in Christ, Those of you who want to be a leader must be a servant I did not come to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. Matthew 20: 26-27. Page 16
KEEP LISTENING - KEEP LEARNING - KEEP SHARING - KEEP SERVING I just learned today that the word SERVE shows up over 300 times in the Bible! As Cursillistas, we have been magically handed the perfect opportunity to perform all these directives in the most humble, joyful and meaningful way through our love for one another, remembering that Christ is counting on each of us to do His work, and we have been given the perfect vehicle our 4th Day! We have another Cursillo Weekend coming up in May. We can sponsor, we can participate In many hand s on and/or prayerful ways. As a member of our Servant Community I hope that you consider serving Christ and our Servant Community at the same time. After we attend our Weekend we usually have a stirring desire to want more of the wonderful experience we have just had for the last three days. I know I did, and thank you, thank you, Jesus I jumped in with both feet and guess what? It has been a joyful, spirit-filled growth in my Christian life that has been a constant love in my heart since my blessed Cursillo Weekend in May 1980. The lives that have been touched, the opportunities and experiences that have opened for me to listen, learn, share and serve have planted wondrous gifts in my heart. These happy things can be yours, too. All you have to do is to reach out and allow yourself to grow and flourish in your 4th Day. We have to take the first step reach out and embrace each opportunity that seems right for you. Try coming to a Servant Community Reunion/Meeting and give it a try; there is no obligation, just an opportunity. Page 17
We meet the first Saturday morning of September and February (weather permitting) at 9:45 A.M. at Trinity Church library in Canton until noon. We enjoy snacks before opening prayer, teaching, sharing and planning our 4th day activities. We work closely with the Secretariat and together we enjoy the unfolding blessings of Cursillo. Please think about taking advantage of joining Servant Community and having a rewarding experience in your ongoing 4th Day. Thank you, thank you, Jesus! Binki Wright, SC Coordinator 978 263-0234 rewright599@comcast.net Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, When we come to know Christ, we need to share in the life of our Lord God through our relationship with Him, and to allow God to make us living vehicles of the Holy Spirit. We must live the life of Grace as well as share it with others, and those whom we encounter in our daily lives. Together we can all grow in our relationship with Christ and continue to experience life in Christ together. Page 18
As Christians, we need to be, and do, as we are called by God, as we continue in the Grace of God s presence in our lives. There are two key things that we can do to continue living the Christian life. First, we must keep in contact with Christ and maintain our union with Him. Second, we must have and maintain contact with fellow Christians as we can grow in union with Christ. When we participate in a Cursillo weekend, whether as a candidate or as a team member we hear that piety is directing everything in our life to God, and that study is a constant nourishment for our relationship with God. We can encounter Christ in the Sacraments for tangible contact with God; to this we add prayer as well as spiritual direction and guidance. We need to share our life in Christ.h and we need community to live a fully Christian life. We need friends with whom we can share our life in Christ and communicate and share our love of Christ to those around us. We need a sacred and holy relationship where we encourage, stimulate and help each other. We need to share together and continue to grow in our idealism, dedication and love. We need to be part of an apostolic group. It's a way of rejoicing in the Lord and celebrating our love of God and our love of each other. DECOLORES! Submitted by Sue Geen Page 19
Jesus said For many are called, but few are chosen Matthew 22:14) - My understanding of these words. What do I take away from these words? I understand that God is calling to not just a few, but to all of us, and those who reach out and engage with others in His name, are His chosen. As his chosen ones, we are His hands, and he is relying on us to continue His work by bringing others in to communion with Him. Our Father has chosen us as his own children, and depends on us to reach out to others in and around our communities. As Cursillistas, we experience His love and compassion and we are called to help others in to this wonderful relationship with God and other Christians. God is the way, the truth and our guiding light, and He will guide and bless our path as we seek to do His will. We are entering the Christmas Season now, the anticipated celebration of the birth of Christ. May we keep our calling as children of The Lord the center of our lives as we reach out to others and help bring them home to Him and we thank God for the many blessings we have received. Amen. De colores, and have a blessed Christmas season. Claudette Page 20