THE PERSON
By Jeff Williams, SOL Chair
The term “person” is undoubtedly one of the essential components, if not the prime concept of the fundamental thinking of the Cursillo movement.
So, what is a person, according to Websters Dictionary, the definition is: it is a noun, 1) A human Being, the personality of a human being. That is the basic definition of “The Person”.
So, Why is this important, The Cursillo movement had it’s beginnings 83 years ago, by our founder Edwardo Bonnin, with the first Cursillo in 1940s. Our joy is meaningful only if the movement, which was born then, and has grown to a worldwide movement that has helped over millions of people to realize the value and meaning of not only being a simple individual or just another human being, but of being a “person” of Christ.
Think back to your Cursillo weekend, what is the first thing we do after the opening? We meditate on the “person,” We do this with meditation on:
- Know yourself- putting our lives in order.
- Prodigal Son- We learn Gods Love.
- The Three Glances of Christ-we learn that these glances teach us that our eyes of a person can penetrate the soul of another person.
These meditations are the start of the conversion process of Cursillo, because if you don’t know yourself, you cannot know others fully.
One of the funniest things about being Christian, is that it is a continuous chain of encounters that generate the need for further searches of oneself. We are continuously finding things at all hours everyday in all people and all places, and these encounters drive us to find new quests and new encounters, that’s how the person works as understood by Cursillo.
We believe to think better, our belief in Christ helps us think in a more precise manor, Our beliefs do not deprive us of thinking. It is valuable to mention at this point a phrase by C.K. Chesterton, which is “when you enter a church you should take off your hat, but not your head.”
The concept of a person, which is the essence and the fundamental charism of Cursillo, rejects individualism, the same way it rejects Angelism and sacrificial masochism. From here our essential conviction on how to live and to be saved “in a cluster” lies in the certainty that you only live in fulfillment with in that which you share with others.
When we think back to our cursillo weekend again, we learned that we need to Study Our Environment- this was the first Rollo written by Edwardo Bonnin, why?
Because you need to study the person you are trying to reach, this is the first step in our motto.
Make a friend, be a friend and bring a friend to Christ.