The Leaders School of The Cursillo Movement

Of The Savannah Diocese

Savannah, Georgia

Technique Talk (from the leaders group):

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Hi. My name is Jerry Marcotte and I started my 4th day walk in March 1982, having attended my Cursillo in the diocese of Scranton, Pa.. I left that holy place with 4 things to guide me: 1. My memory of an incredible "experience"; 2. My notebook; 3. My "4th Day" book; and 4. My sponsor.

The memory of that "experience" quickly faded, because that mountain-top experience was so intense and was so foreign to my previous experiences that I was still in some kind of shock. You see I spent so much time crying during that weekend with Jesus that I lost track of the messages of the talks. When I looked at my notebook I saw that it too suffered in the same way, because I took very incomplete notes, so it was lost to me as a tool as well.

My sponsor, to her credit, immediately brought me into a group reunion. My sponsor at that time was my bride to be and she is now my wife, Barbara. Although my Group was separated by a hundred miles at the time, we still got together every two weeks. Our Grouping wasn’t done exactly by the book, but we had all the elements. Our study was often in the form of a bible study i.e. Romans 8 or I Corinthians etc... After Barb & I married, 6 months later, and we moved to Augusta (Ft. Gordon) we couldn’t find anyone who knew what Cursillo was, so we grouped just the 2 of us. That worked for a short while then we stopped because it seemed fruitless to group about what we already knew about each other. We didn’t group again until around Advent 1985 when the Savannah diocese inaugurated a parish renewal program titled, "Hearts Renewed".

This isn’t going to be a traditional didactic presentation, trust me, rather I am attempting to put all the references above into a practical, useable framework on which you may build your own Group reunion.

Group reunion is really about "friendship" and helping your friends to stay the course, as St. Paul put it, so that all your friends wind up in heaven with you. The "make a friend, be a friend, and bring a friend to Christ", is only the LAST part of our obligations to "prayer, study and action". The very ACTION that we profess to believe in and said we would do when we completed our Cursillo weekend.

Group reunion is no small matter in our busy lives, because it involves a change in our life style (sometimes a radical one). Group reunions are inevitably scheduled at times and days when we seem to have a lot of conflicting things to do. I confess that I usually wanted to do the "something else" more than the group reunion during the first 3 years of my 4th day. It wasn’t until I met our new friends during "Hearts Renewed" that I became energized and actually looked foreword to our meetings. These were not cursillistas either, but remember--first make a friend then be a friend. Call to mind that first among our obligations is to "pray" or as some cursillistas like to say, "first talk to God about your friend, before you talk to your friend about God."

Barb & I did pray--we prayed before we ever met or knew any of them. When we agreed to become a host couple for Hearts Renewed, we prayed that God would send us those who, like us, were rejected or not well enough known to be selected by other groups in the parish, those He wanted us to have-----and He did!!!

This new group of friends became our return to a Cursillo way of life. This became our life-giving group of friends because Hearts Renewed asked each of us to share our life with others about our journey to Christ that continues today. It was hard, learning to share with strangers, but the effort was ever so worth it. We learned that when everyone shares, the bonds of friendship grow strong (this is the hard part of "be a friend"). We found that when the Hearts Renewed cycle was completed, no one wanted to stop meeting, so we continued to meet on a regular basis agreeing to engage in various bible studies such as Romans 8 and Genesis etc. When these were completed, Barb and I would use our group reunion format (who knew?), they even liked that, because it asked questions that lead to a sharing of ourselves.

Over the next several years, some people dropped out and others were added, but most of the original group became cursillistas (Diane & Ken, Bob & Betty, Mike, Brian) and our bible study became several group reunions and a way of life for us. Our schedules revolve more around group reunion rather than taking 2nd place. I belong to a recreation department softball team and a traveling senior softball team. They know that I can't play on Thursday nights because of group reunion and when Ultreya night is a conflict, I choose Ultreya.

Bobby & Kenny have been my true friends since 1985 and we still meet regularly on Thursday nights and when one is sick or out of town or in some sort of crisis, we pray for each other and we miss each other when we don't meet. New cursillistas I think have a hard time understanding this need to see each other at first, but with perseverance they will learn it in time. Oh yeah!! Our friendship group of 12 in 1985 has seen two priests and one deacon ordained, and 4 of the 5 original members who became cursillistas still group with Barb & I.

I left my Cursillo with 4 things to guide me, but only two remain, my 4th Day book and my sponsor. Peak experiences don’t last beyond our memory’s capability, but steadily studying the literature and having a sponsor that keeps encouraging you on and friends to group with do last.

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