Book Review

 Book Review

By Frank Malick

Diocese of Hamilton Ontario

Author: Eduardo Suárez del Real Aguilera

Title: Eduardo Bonnín: An Apprentice Christian

Copyright: Palma de Mallorca, Spain: Fundación Eduardo Bonnín Aguiló (FEBA), 2013, 210pp. 

Ordering Info: http://www.cursillocanada.org/, $16.00

ISBN: 978-84-936888-9-9

Introduction

If you are reading this, your life has probably been changed in some way by the encounter with self, God and others on a Cursillo weekend. Have you ever wondered how Cursillos in Christianity came about, and what its original purpose was and still is? The answer to that question is deeply intertwined in the life and thought of Eduardo Bonnín, upon whom the Holy Spirit deposited the charism of Cursillo, and his small band of companions who, in Mallorca, Spain of the 1940s, developed a method and a movement “that has been able to express the Gospel in modern terms and revitalize the lives of nearly ten million people throughout the world; in some countries up to two generations.”

The purpose of this book is to help us better understand Cursillo and its foundational charism by better knowing its founder, since there is close relationship between Cursillo and the life of its main architect. In this work, Eduardo Suárez del Real Aguilera, a Mexican journalist now living on Mallorca, uses the biographical interview to convey Eduardo’s life story, preserving his linguistic preferences so that his very language reveals personality traits, as well as his life history, which enriches his story with points of view from Eduardo’s band of brothers.

As you read this book, you will get to know Eduardo on a personal basis, sharing his excitement about Christ, his commitment to Cursillo and the Church, and the joy and frustration he has faced shepherding the movement through six decades. 

In reading this book, I was most struck by a definition of Cursillo that Eduardo first put forth in 1997, that differs from the definition contain in the Fundamental Ideas of the Cursillo Movement (by which I first studied the Movement). It is through the prism of this later definition that we will consider the key points of this body of work within the context of the five statements of Eduardo’s definition:

1. The Cursillos of Christianity is a movement that as a result of its own method, attempts, from within the Church,

2. to make the reality of being a Christian come alive in the singularity, originality and creativity of each person, 

3. so that by discovering their potential and accepting their limitations, 

4. they might direct their freedom with conviction, reinforce their will with decisiveness

5. and direct their friendship in favour of a commitment to their daily communal and individual life.

We will see how his early life led him to recognize the need for a modern means of evangelization in which laity were the main participants, the founding of Cursillos in Christianity, its early growing pains followed by worldwide acceptance (and modification from its original intent), and his ongoing struggle to preserve the foundational charism which he received so many years ago. 

It is the story of a life dedicated to communicating God’s love to every person - of a humble man, who after years of study and growth in his faith, still considered himself An Apprentice Christian to the end!

The Definition

The Cursillos of Christianity is a movement that as a result of its own method, attempts, from within the Church,…

Serving in the military was a decisive time in Eduardo’s life. From 1937, at age 18, two contrary sources of knowledge came into his life: reality from the direct contact with the profane man of the trenches, and idealism from his books. But Eduardo saw obstacles to bridging the gap between the two: Never before had the Christian message been as bland as in those times. Christ’s message will never be unsubstantial, but the way of presenting it was soul-less. I tried to make a bouquet with the most important truths, collected from books that were changing the world. That’s how Cursillos began.

His contact with people led him to the conclusion that when the message of the Gospel is welcomed with a personalized faith and reaches the individuality, originality and creativity of each person, it empowers their human qualities: Man encounters Christ in the emptiness of his inner silence, and this is the reason why the goal of our efforts has always been to “travel from man’s skin to his inner being.” That is the novelty of the Cursillo Movement, that distinguishes it from other things that can be very good, but are not the same, and don’t accomplish the same goal. This is its genuine characteristic and what has made way for Christ’s message to reach the marginalized who lack information, are misinformed, or are poorly informed. 

Eduardo studied the environment around him and concluded that what we wanted first, and still continue to want, is that the freedom of man encounters the spirit of God.

Even though it was a lay movement, Eduardo knew that he would need approval from the Church to allow it to spread and grow, so he asked Bishop Juan Hervas for his blessing, who then said:“I bless Cursillos of Christianity not with one hand, but with both of them.”

But the changes that emerged since Cursillo has spread around the world have led to an internal conflict within Cursillo that exists to this day, prompting Eduardo to confirm at the 5th World Encounter in Korea: The Cursillos in Christianity were not thought up, structured nor prayed for in order to evangelize the world, but rather to evangelize the person. The Cursillos in Christianity Movement was not born as a response of the Church to the world, but rather as a way of communicating to the person that God loves them. We have no knowledge of any adaptation that has responded to the intention of making its purpose clearer, more precise, simpler, more effective and more intelligible.

…to make the reality of being a Christian come alive in the singularity, originality and creativity of each person,… 

Eduardo says that Cursillo was always intended for everyone, with a preference for the “far away”: The Cursillo Movement, by the grace of God and the prayers of many, was born from a real live concern for the concrete, normal, everyday person who comes from everyday life and is overwhelmed just by the fact that he has to live and can continue to live, who rarely takes the time to think about why he lives and much less to worry about the meaning if his existence.

The focus should always be on the person:

The person has four corners:

• truth, which is what gives meaning to life,

• good, which is what gives joy to life

• friendship, which is what gives breath to life, and

• art, which is the contemplation of life.

And three exterior: love, work and fun. If all this remains calm, nothing happens. But the day you fall in love, there is a cyclone that takes up the other two things: work, which suffers, and how to have fun, that changes. It can also happen that work or fun can produce the cyclones that drag down the other two things. What to look for is the constant breeze that makes us advance with all. What the person has to achieve is that their attitude match their aptitude. 

Cursillo should focus on “the what”, because it has been thought out so that all who are capable of understanding, may discover, from the very axle of their personal life in Grace, and for those who have lived a Cursillo, what it means to be loved by God and to begin making it transparent, normally, naturally and humanly, starting with those closest to them (here, now, starting now and starting with me).

…so that by discovering their potential and accepting their limitations,…

The spirit of the Cursillo is nothing more than the substance of the Gospel in the context of the reality of many lives. Sometimes it overtakes a person with an effervescent drive that has not always been easy to harness, but possesses all the force of an impressive, impenetrable generosity.

The objective of the Cursillo is not to make a person see, but to propose the discovery. It is so each person can find in that interior there is something more beautiful than all of the exterior. God says, through Christ, that happiness and the kingdom of God are with us, not to be sought elsewhere, not to make people see the responsibilities they acquire from being baptized, but rather the possibilities.

…they might direct their freedom with conviction, reinforce their will with decisiveness…

Freedom and exercise of our own free will is at the heart of the Cursillo method: What we wanted at first, and still continue to want, is that the freedom of man encounters the spirit of God.

But that freedom must be ground in reality and truth:

What is normal is that everything needs to be experienced. That is why in Cursillo one experiences everything that is said live and in person, since only in this way can it become truth. And the truth will make us free, which is what we as children of God should be. It is that possibility of being free that makes us equal in his eyes.

There is only one truth and it never changes. What is true today is true forever. What changes is how the truth is applied. I think that the objective is to have people obtain a criterion of truth, always to search for the truth. Christ is the truth, but it is through the way the truth is applied that we make all things true.

Eduardo applied the truth in many encounters with the marginalized of society (the “far away”) of whom he said: I know the world through the perspective of those who do not go to confession.

When our freedom is well-grounded with the conviction based on the truth of Christ, and our consciences well-formed, we can move forward with decisiveness: This strategy of finding with oneself is very clearly stated in the Gospel in many episodes which relate it with indisputable truth, from John the Baptist, the precursor, to the Good Thief at Calvary, and let’s not forget the Samaritan Woman, Zaccheus and even the Apostles after Pentecost. They all give evidence that what the Lord intended above all was that everyone finds himself and from himself and by himself and with His grace, in the light of His Word, make his own personal decision. 

…and direct their friendship in favour of a commitment to their daily communal and individual life.

Grounded in faith and the love of God, we can then participate in Eduardo’s  favorite activity: Friendship.

The Gospel can be proclaimed or made known in a thousand ways, but we believe that the best one is to increase friendship among people. The need to make contact always creates friendship. When two people talk and speak the truth, an important thread is woven between them and God – friendship is praise. Friendship creates this, and this creates friendship.

That friendship thrives within the ongoing commitment to Group Reunion and Ultreya: Currently, in many parts of the world, priests and lay people are getting to know each other better and are aiming at the same target: to ensure that those whom the Cursillo has gathered in the Lord’s name will discover that God loves them. That is when the friendship which was started or renewed by the warmth of the idealism of participating in the Cursillo, gradually and spontaneously grows, in such a way that every detail that comes from living the adventure of Cursillo intensely is lived with great enthusiasm, from its beginnings to the attempt to find out later if whoever was invited to the Cursillo understood it; that is, if the Cursillo served so that they love life more and whether the methods – that is, the Group Reunion (shared reality of life as friendship) and the Ultreya (a circumstance that enables the best of each person to reach as many as possible) – which have always been made available to those who have lived the Cursillo, help them to live their lives.

Eduardo goes on to explain the depth of thinking behind the living our 4th day commitment:

A human being has two poles, the personal and the collective. A person cannot live knowing he lives without being aware of their “I” and without having an “us”. A person that lives without “us”, sooner or later can do something bad. The person needs an “us” to correct himself, sharpening and tuning his personality. 

• It is necessary to create a friendship and understanding that it is more than skin-deep. There needs to be a bridge over which to communicate our dreams and our doubts. That bridge facilitates the exchange, and in this exchange both participants become persons. This is the personal pole.The personal pole of a Cursillista evolves in the Group Reunion, in which a channel of friendship is directed to conversion.

• The other is the collective one: The Cursillo in Christianity went about creating personal contact. The Cursillo went about injecting itself into the fabric of life. When one has lived an experience it gives pleasure to share it with other people who have also lived it. This feeds itself. The ultreya is where “he who has, keeps it” and also “returns to the scene of the crime.”

A Personal Witness

I lived my Cursillo weekend in Tampa, Florida in Sept., 2001. It was the 94th Men’s Cursillo of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, and I sat at St. Matthew’s Table. The weekend I attended was held three weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, at a time when many Americans were finding refuge in their faith, and hence it was a time of intense searching for meaning of the events of the day. 

During the weekend, I developed a hunger for study – study of Scripture, Church Tradition and the Cursillo Movement. At that time, we followed the Fundamental Ideas of the Cursillo Movement and the US Leaders’ Manual, so that was my basis for formation in Cursillo. 

The focus was on bringing leaders to the weekend who could then go out and evangelize their environments. Only those who could receive the sacraments of the Church were welcomed, with preference to the “should go” versus “can go” candidates. My Cursillo world was quite well-ordered, until the US National Director came back from visiting Eduardo Bonnin in 2003, and told everyone that we had missed the key message of Cursillo, that the focus should be on the individual, not the environments, and so a “Shift in Focus” was launched to bring the US into line with the Foundational Charism.

The first impact in the “Shift in Focus” was to adopt the Mallorcan outlines, which we did not like and refused to use. In fact, our diocese led a coalition to fight the “Shift in Focus”. It was only when I attended the 2008 US National Conference as a Lay Director, and the Episcopal Advisor appealed to the Spiritual Directors for unity in the Movement , that I suspected we might be on the wrong track.

Moving back to Canada in 2010, I naturally made contact with the ultreya in Burlington, and began to get involved with the Hamilton Diocese Cursillo Movement. I decided to keep an open mind, and worked my first Canadian weekend with the Mallorcan outlines. Many of the translation problems I had encountered in the US had been corrected, and I found them much simpler and direct. I was also surprised to find that one did not have to be in good standing with the Catholic Church, nor, in fact, even to be Catholic to attend a Cursillo weekend.

I am preparing to work my fifth weekend in Canada and what I have learned through experience is that Cursillo attempts to create an environment where one can enjoy a personal encounter with Christ. Everyone experiences Cursillo in their own unique way, but most come away with the profound knowledge that Christ loves them intimately, and that they can’t help but share that love with others

And that realization makes all the difference to me – rather than “fishing in the fishbowl” of good Catholics we need to find the “faraway” and invite them to that encounter and the realization that God loves them. 

That revelation was reinforced in reading Eduardo Bonnín: An Apprentice Christian. I never had the pleasure of meeting Eduardo in person, but I feel I know him better after reading this book, and share his eternal optimism and enthusiasm for the human journey we all are on: With the exception of Spain, the movement in the world is going well. May God grant us the perseverance to carry on in his footsteps, and may the Cursillo Method continue to bring souls to Christ!

De Colores!