‘Life-changing experience’ for 33 participants
The diocese’s first Cursillo weekends in Spanish were a godsend for the 18 women and 15 men who attended them this summer because the experience allowed them to grow closer to God in their native language.
“There are a lot of people living in this area who cannot speak English very well, and we wanted to offer them the opportunity (to experience a Cursillo),” said Wilbert Torres, a parishioner at Our Lady of Mount Carmel (OLMC), Newport News, and one of the team members for the men’s weekend. “Even if they were willing to go (to an English one), I don’t think they would have been able to grasp everything we wanted to get across to them about God and about Christ. It’s better for them to do it in their own language.”
That was true for Josefina Lomeli, parishioner at OLMC who speaks Spanish and English but knows her prayers and songs in her native language.
“Although I am fluent in English, I love my Latin community, and I love to share our culture and be understanding of the love of God and share it with the people who understand me and my Latin roots,” said Lomeli, who moved to the United States from Mexico when she was a child.
It was also helpful to Rocio Sanchez, an OLMC parishioner from Mexico, who said, “I feel more connection with God in Spanish because it’s my first language.”
Although the Cursillo movement began in Spain in 1944 and has been in the diocese for the past 50 years, the diocese’s first men’s Cursillo in Spanish was held in June in Hampton, and the first for women in that language was held in Hampton in August. Men’s and women’s Cursillo weekends in Spanish are being planned for next year.
‘Live faith authentically’
Planning the Spanish Cursillo had a few challenges, including a COVID delay and finding team members who spoke Spanish. To meet the latter challenge, Spanish-speaking people from as far as Pennsylvania for the men’s weekend helped organize and run the weekends.
During the three and a half days of Cursillo, participants listened to talks or spiritual reflections from 12 team members and had small breakout sessions to reflect on how those teachings apply to their lives. There were also spiritual activities such as daily Mass, reconciliation and adoration.
The weekend is the same in Spanish as it is in English with just a few cultural differences, such as a different welcoming activity and more devotion to the Blessed Mother during the Spanish weekend, explained Michelle Grau, director of Spanish Cursillo.
She explained that Cursillo is more than a retreat. After experiencing the weekend, Cursillistas meet weekly in small groups of about five to six parishioners to discuss how they are implementing the three pillars of the Cursillo Movement: piety, study and action.
“We’re sent out to whatever environment we’re in as laity to live out our faith authentically,” she explained. Through the small groups, Cursillistas “continue to grow and walk with one another as a community.”
Once a month, the small groups combine for food and fellowship at a celebration known as Ultreya. The Spanish-speaking Cursillistas will have their own celebration for that as well, Grau said.
She hopes that “we continue to call more and more Spanish speakers to have this encounter with Christ in a language that they feel most comfortable in so that they, in turn, can go out and live their faith authentically in their different environments wherever they might be and attract more Spanish speakers as well to the faith, draw them to Jesus and also learn to live a life of faith daily.”
‘No more doubt’
Victoria Hunt, a parishioner at St. Luke, Virginia Beach, said the weekend changed her life.
Before attending Cursillo, she believed in God but had doubts at times and needed something to “re-enforce God.” She could identify with all of the speakers on the weekend and had two “powerful” experiences in the chapel when she was in private prayer. She felt God’s “spirit and love,” and he told her, “You won’t doubt again.”
“For me, I received the message very clear. There’s no doubt anymore,” Hunt said. “I feel changed because with everything that I lived in the Cursillo, I felt a message from God. I need to change things in my life that aren’t right.”
She feels called to continue to focus on her family, and she prays the rosary daily, has joined a Bible study and talks to friends about the love she feels from God.
Fredy Medina, St. Luke Parish, also said that the weekend made it clear to him that he needs to spend more time with his family.
Rocio Sanchez said she felt the Holy Spirit come into her body when she was praying in the chapel. As a result, she is praying the rosary daily and talking to her coworkers and children about how God is “transforming” her.
Impact upon Cursillistas
Leticia Sanchez and her husband, Hernan Florez, members of St. Luke, Virginia Beach, attended a Spanish-language Cursillo weekend over the summer.
Leticia said she saw Jesus when she was praying there. She wondered why Jesus would appear to her, and she later learned that her husband was home praying for such an apparition for her.
Florez said that before the Cursillo, when he prayed, he talked to God, but now, he also listens.
Griselda Jordan, St. Luke Parish, speaking through a translator, said that she often felt angry and critical of others and had a “heart of stone” before living the Cursillo weekend, but her “hardened heart” was transformed in the chapel when she was praying.
She felt God’s presence, “a warmth in her heart.” Her knees became so heavy she couldn’t move, and she was “so involved in that moment with the Lord” that she was disoriented. Her hardened heart was transformed at that moment in the chapel.
“Now she feels joy that’s inside. It’s not one of those false joys that you are just smiling on the outside. It’s from inside out. She feels joy with her family and with people around her,” Grau translated. “She said it’s like she was asleep before, and she’s been awakened. She would go to Mass and be there, but now she really lives it. She feels alive.”
Florez called Cursillo an experience that he can’t explain.
“It’s something that you have to feel,” Florez said. “It’s a beautiful experience that changed my life.”