Welcome, and may our Lord and Savior, Jesus be with you and bless you as you grow in grace and peace.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE MOVEMENT AND HAVE NOT MADE A WEEKEND-- we thank you for visiting our web site. A good starting point is to read the publication: “Cursillo, What Is It?” or ask any Cursillista you know for information. Any active Cursillista can provide a copy of the above publication or if that does not work, email me (click here) Edward Wissel and I will get a copy to you as soon as possible

To the Cursillistas of the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama,

I send my best wishes to all of you and assure you that I pray constantly to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for your health, happiness and salvation. It’s been about 6 months since I became the Cursillo Chair for the Cursillo Movement of the Diocese of Birmingham. In that time, there have been many success stories. Together, we Brothers and Sisters in Christ have successfully conducted two Cursillos in Christianity Weekends – one for men and one for women - adding about 30 new babe chicks to our community. Many of you also have participated in School of Leaders (SOL) and thus prayerfully provided direction for our movement. I personally would like to thank you for your numerous thoughts and suggestions for improving attendance at SOL and thus the quality and continuity of the leadership and team qualified individuals available to our movement. We have not fogotten this last issue and will be discussing it further at SOL in the early month(s) of 2009.

As a part of my responsibility as your Cursillo Chair, I continually review both the process and content of our weekends. The Process includes selection of Weekend Leaders and team members, team formation, and the conduct of the weekend itself. The Content being reviewed also includes the material used for Team Formation as well as that used on the weekend. I will now comment on some of the items that have been discussed in the last six months.

As most of you are aware, we in this Diocese have been trying to improve our continuity with the initial principles of the Cursillo Movement and thus moving to a closer alignment with the movement throughout the world. We have not been doing this simply because we were different, but because we believed this was the right thing to do after prayerful consideration. I refer here to the changes we have incorporated in team selection as well as changes to the Weekend Mosaic itself.

Changes in Team Selection were long overdue. All members of Cursillo teams in the Diocese of Birmingham live the movement and are authentic Cursillistas. Each member of the last 6 teams group and attend Ultreya regularly. The Leaders of the last 4 teams are members of the SOL and are thus authentic leaders in the Cursillo Movement.

Some changes to the weekends have already happened and some still need to be made. As mentioned before, the weekend Rollos have been restored to the originals begun in Majorca Spain in the 1940’s. As a part of this effort we have transitioned to the new “Three Day Manual.” The new manual has a short outline and a sample Rollo. Many have observed that the sample rollo in the new manual apparently “loses something in the translation.” While that is may be true, the outline provided does accurately relay the key components of each rollo necessary to build the authentic Cursillo Mosaic. If we then prepare our Rollos in accordance with that outline and prayerfull provide the personal witnesses needed, the mosaic will be authentically constructed. Another obvious component is that the new manual has reinserted the “Cursillista beyond the Cursillo” Rollo. We have been using the outline for this Rollo (which was also in the previous three day manual) for the Fourth Day talk given at Clausura. I was able to give this Rollo during Cursillo 108 and I really believe that it belongs as part of the weekend itself. It is obvious to anyone who has worked any of the last six weekends, however, that we now have some obvious duplication.

This brings me to those changes to the content of the weekend that still need to be made. To be blunt, “We need to make some changes to how Clausura itself is conducted.” I have reviewed our weekend outlines and begun to compare them to the outlines provided in the “Three Day Manual.” Some of the things that I have discovered are: 1) The questions that are asked of the Babe Chicks at Clausura in the Three Day Manual (both new and old) are not the ones we currently ask; 2) The manual calls for multilple “fourth day witnesse(s)”, not just one; 3) The Commitment Service is suppose to happen in the presence of the full “fourth day” community; and 4) The Babe Chicks should be offering their personal answers to the “two questions” in the safe loving environment of the weekend itself (just the team and candidates) before they are exposed to the loving (but sometimes overwhelming) croud representing the larger Cursillo Comminity. The three day manual also calls for exposition of the Blessed Sacrement and Benediction as part of the closing.

After prayerfull consideration, all of these changes seem worthwhile to your Secretariat, but they all bring their own challenges. We also realize that these additional changes are rather substantial when looked at in their entirety. We wil therefore be making these changes in stages. For now, the questions that will be asked of the Babe Chicks on Cursillo 114 & 115 will change from:

1. 1. WHAT WAS THE MESSAGE THAT OUR LORD, JESUS CHRIST, BROUGHT TO YOU DURING THESE THREE DAYS?
2. 2. WHAT DO YOU PLAN TO DO WITH THIS MESSAGE IN YOUR LIFE IN YOUR 4TH DAY? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO SERVE HIM?

1. 1. WHAT HAVE I DISCOVERED ABOUT MYSELF, CHRIST, AND THE CHURCH (REMEMBER, WHO IS THE CHURCH?) DURING THE CURSILLO?
2. 2. WHAT DO I PLAN TO DO ON MY FOURTH DAY WITH WHAT I HAVE LEARNED AND LIVED?

Subsequent changes will be phased in over the next year or two or as we work out the logistics necessary. We also solicit and welcome your input in this area and will hopefully be able to provide some time during the work of the sections at SOL to facilitate some group discussion.

For now, I ask for your prayers for the Cursillo Movement, for your Secretariat, and for your Cursillo Chair.

God Bless and Decolores,
Ed Wissel
Cursillo Chair

Application forms for the Cursillo weekends can be found here: Candidate & Sponsor Application Form

Application forms to work a Cursillo Team can be found here: Cursillo Team Application Form