Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 10, 1994 TAG: 9409140035
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By THOMAS HUANG DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The faithful have on this summer evening gathered at a meeting hall next to Our Lady of Lourdes, a church in West Dallas. The murmur of voices is not unlike that of the confessional.
Segovia, a dark-haired, somber man, and about 60 people converse in small groups. They are participating in a monthly reunion of local Spanish-speaking followers of Cursillo, an international movement in the Roman Catholic Church whose national headquarters are in Dallas.
With origins in Spain, Cursillo means ``short course'' in Spanish, and the weekend of Aug. 20 marked its 50th anniversary.
Men and women in single-sex groups are introduced to Cursillo through short courses, or three-day retreats, and for years afterward they meet regularly as a way to energize their faith.
``I found meaning to everything I do in my life,'' says Segovia, 41, a maintenance worker who joined Cursillo in 1988. ``What happens can be good or bad, but God is there at all moments.''
The movement's first unofficial meeting took place a half-century ago on the island of Majorca, Spain, says Tom Sarg, executive director of the National Cursillo Center.
The movement, he says, has about 850,000 followers worldwide. It operates in more than 180 dioceses across the United States.
In the Catholic Church of the 1940s, in Spain and elsewhere, ``the role of the laity was very limited,'' says Sarg, referring to church members not included in the clergy. He describes it this way: ``The Catholic Church was: Sit in the pews and pay your dues. Or pray, pay and obey.''
The Cursillo movement came as a response to that, he says. A group of lay people in Spain looked for a way to make religion come alive for young people. Cursillo developed as these people prayed, worked together and shared their thoughts.
In 1957, Cursillo was introduced to the United States ``by two Spanish airmen who were stationed in Waco [Texas]'' Sarg says. ``In 1962, the first English Cursillo was held in San Angelo, Texas.''
The National Cursillo Center is recognized as one of about 100 Catholic lay organizations in the United States, says Sheila Garcia, a special assistant at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.
Cursillo and other lay movements were strengthened in 1962, Garcia says, when the Vatican ``encouraged more lay involvement in the church, a swing away from the hierarchical model where priests and bishops were in control of everything.''
``The church encouraged people to take more responsibility for their own spiritual growth,'' she says. Today, ``people are looking for practical support and assistance in living daily Christian lives.''
The Catholic Diocese of Dallas endorses Cursillo, says the Rev. Ramon Alvarez, diocese chancellor and pastor of St. Edward Catholic Church on Elm Street. ``I've known many Cursillistas,'' he says, ``and a lot of them get so involved in their parish communities and become leaders. Many, for example, are deacon candidates. It rekindles in them our faith. ...It reawakens them.''
Says Ramiro Guillen, 29, a Cursillo member: ``What goes on is a profound study of religion, and it comes from working-class people.''
The Cursillo retreats are for discussing Scripture. In a series of presentations, lay people, priests, deacons and nuns talk about what it means to be a human being and what motivates us.
Participants learn about God's will, and what they can do to help make the world a better place. They also receive spiritual talks on faith, grace and living as a Christian.
Outside of the curriculum, personal testimonies are given, say members of Our Lady of Lourdes. People admit to their flaws and vices, sometimes confessing to neglect of spouses, parents or children.
Some men must overcome ``macho'' attitudes, Segovia says, attitudes that make them dominate their families to negative extremes.
Later, in emotional reunions, the followers talk about how they are trying to become better Christians.
Douglas Bushman, director of the Institute for Religious and Pastoral Studies at the University of Dallas, says the institute has many students who developed an interest in religion through Cursillo.
Bushman describes the Cursillo retreats as ``small-group faith-sharing.'' The retreats do not necessarily impart any ``new information,'' he says, ``but the information is presented in a new way. Because of the prayer and openness, it gets deeper in their hearts.
``There is a power in the personal witness,'' he says. ``Teaching can become lifeless without it. People become more open to doctrines and truths when someone says how [spirituality] has made a difference in their lives.''
Cursillo also encourages followers to spread their faith, although they are not told explicitly to convert others to Catholicism, Sarg says.
``Cursillo focuses on individual growth,'' he says, ``but it goes much further than that: We encourage the Cursillistas to step out and try to transform all of our environments into Christian environments.''
Steve Jones, lay director for English-speaking members in Dallas, says, ``It teaches us how to evangelize in our everyday lives. The things we are already doing help show what our faith is. Some people are afraid to express their religiosity, but [in Cursillo] they see that what they are already doing is evangelizing.''
Jones, a supervisor at an aircraft assembly company, says he fixes people's cars for free. He sees these good acts as a way of spreading faith by setting a positive example.
In Dallas, most Cursillo followers are Hispanic, Jones says, but there are also whites, blacks and Asian-Americans. Across the country, ``Cursillo is multicultural,'' he says. The fastest-growing groups include Koreans, Filipinos, Vietnamese and Haitians, according to the national center.
The headquarters moved to Dallas in 1972 because of Dallas' sizable Hispanic population, central location and large international airport, Sarg says.
Three Spanish-speaking Cursillo retreats in Dallas are scheduled for this fall, serving about 30 people each. Many people who attend the retreats form small weekly meeting groups. They meet in churches, workplaces, and even a deli section of a local supermarket, Jones says.
Then there are monthly reunions, or ultreyas (``onward'' in Spanish), which include songs, prayer and personal testimony. On a recent evening, a reunion takes place at a meeting hall next to Our Lady of Lourdes, on Bernal Drive just off Singleton Boulevard.
The reunion consists of young people in jeans and cowboy boots, babies peering over shoulders, elderly men in shirts and ties, elderly women with lace veils.
They stand to sing, Un dia a la vez, Dios mio, imploring in Spanish: ``One day at a time, my Lord, is what I ask of you; to give me the strength to live, one day at a time.''
Segovia talks to a friend, Mario Rodriguez, about how an accident led him to Cursillo. In 1986, while standing on a hydraulic lift and painting a section of a building in Las Colinas, Segovia fell two stories. He broke an arm, a wrist, a knee. But he survived.
``I realized, in the hospital, that God must have loved me so much,'' Segovia says. ``He must want something from me. I know I could've died.'' He became involved in Cursillo and is studying to become a deacon.
Rodriguez, 28, a technician who wears a Team Mexico World Cup cap, listens to a woman who comes close to tears as she testifies in Spanish about how she volunteers to teach dance to children at school.
``At first, she didn't think she could do it,'' Rodriguez says, a gold cross and chain dangling from his neck. ``But she's trying to help children. What stuck with me was that we can do the same thing in our own environments.''
by CNB