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CURSILLO: SHORT COURSE, LONG COMMITMENT Eduardo Bonnin has devoted
his life to a movement dedicated to spreading the Christian message of
love through one-to-one relationships. He is short, frail and 79
years old. His steps are now slow, his English halting as he steps up to
speak to some of his Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran followers in Ottawa.
Yet through Cursillo, the Christian renewal movement he founded 52 years
ago, this man's ideas have touched an estimated three million people around
the world.
And it was easy to see why
when he began to speak in one of many talks he'll give as he meets some
of the 125,000 Canadians who have participated in Cursillo over
the last 30 years. Bonnin believes what he teaches, and lives it out.
"We must love one another.
If we do not catch this way, there will be wars," he said. And there were
more clear, simple ideas that he says are the core of a movement meant
to spread the Christian way of life through one-on-one relationships:
What Cursillo provides for many is not only an initial conversion experience, but also deep ongoing relationships through small groups and other events that challenge men and women to keep up the Christian commitments they have made during the weekends. Cursillo is still spreading throughout the world. The Philippines is its hot sport, where more than two million people have attended Cursillo weekends over the last 40 years. In Canada, the first Cursillo was held in Trois-Rivieres, Que., in 1963, and today there are regular weekends for the deaf, for aboriginals, and for a number of ethnic groups, as well as for members of several denominations. The concepts work just as well in Taiwan as in Africa, says Bonnin. The weekends still use the same talks on the fundamentals of Christianity that Bonnin and six others worked out for the first Cursillo weekend on the Spanish island of Mallorca in 1944. And although Bonnin says he could never have anticipated the movement would spread so far, he said they had hopes. Even at the first weekend, "We said we would never stop until we gave a Cursillo on the moon. Bonnin says that all he did was study the works of theologians such as Yves Congar and psychologists such as Carl Rogers, then synthesize these ideas into short talks. "The Holy Spirit did it. I don't make nothing," he says. One of the key concepts of Cursillo is to "be Christian and form community where we are." That's how Bonnin has spent his whole life. Except for nine years of military service, he always worked in the family almond business on Mallorca. But he never married, and spent his vacations giving Cursillo weekends, and his weeknights visiting prisoners and befriending others. Bob Robinson, a member of the Catholic Cursillo's national council in Canada, calls Bonnin a prophet. "He listens to the heart of God speaking in his heart and leads the way in a simple and gentle way. He lives the method," he says. Robinson's full of stories about Bonnin and his concern for others. Of the prisoner he's visited for 20 years, but never-yet-tried to convert. Of the two hardened murderers he visited the night before their executions, and who went to the gallows with a smile because they had believed Bonnin's conversation-starter: "You are very lucky. You will see Christ tomorrow." My short interview with Bonnin is difficult because I'm never too sure we've overcome the language barrier enough to truly understand one another. I keep asking him, "What is so special about you? How did you accomplish so much?" Bonnin continues to insist that he did nothing, that he is only "a blunt instrument" in the hands of God, that God gave him the gift of faith, that God did all the work. But at the end, I ask him: "I don't have as strong a faith as you. Why doesn't God give me that gift? Why you?" This time I know Bonnin truly
understands, because he seizes the opportunity:
"You have faith but
you must discover it. You must go in the deep of yourself and you will
find it. Your eyes say to me you are a man of faith. "You must do a
Cursillo."
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