Music, as Prayer and Study

From our Lay Directors

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

One of the ways I love to pray and study is through music. I listen to a couple of different Christian radio stations and have saved or downloaded many songs to my phone, as I love their messages and going back to them for meditation and prayer. They give me strength, peace, help me feel the love of God and remind me who I'm supposed to be in this world.

Let Them see You in Me, a song by Colton Dixon came out in 2013.

The refrain is as follows;

Let them see You in me

Let them hear You when I speak

Let the feel You when I sing

Let them see You

Let them see You, in me

I love this song! The message is simple but profound! When I listen to this song and sing along with it, I pray that God will use me where I am, as I am to be His hands and feet, heart and voice to everyone I meet every day. Through my word and example, I want people to see Christ in me!

My message is simple. Read and pray the words of this song and mean them. 

Blessings! 

Karen Fritsch - kittyrg1967@gmail.com 

Troy Peebles - tpeebles1007@gmail.com

Living an Eternal Life

From Our Spiritual Advisor:

Make a friend, be a friend, bring that friend to Christ.

I have been thinking about life a lot lately. I think about life in varied ways. There is this life that I live in this human body and the various life changes that occur over time. I think of these life variations, especially having reached my 75th birthday. There are health changes, financial changes, emotional changes to name a few. These changes are inevitable.

Then there is the important life issue. How about our spiritual life? Jesus speaks continually about life. One might think he is obsessed with life and in a way, he is obsessed with life. That obsession is focused on the eternal life that each of us are participating in daily. Jesus says, “you must lose your life to have life eternal”. St. Paul writes that this life is a burden that gets in the way of our forever life,our eternal life.

Jesus isn’t telling us that the life we live is useless to us. In fact, we are born to be useful in fulfilling the plan thatGod has presented to the world. That plan is focused on knowing God in the deepest ways and to lead others through our example, our thoughts, our actions, based on what we are taught by Jesus through the Scriptures.

The Scriptures. Here is where we see Jesus showing us the plan for this human life and how it relates to our eternal life. Let me say that again. Our human life relates to our eternal life.

I think the first thing that we need to focus on is that we, right now, are living an eternal life and that this human life is not apart from it. We are to live within eternal life just as Jesus lives in the eternal life. Is this too much to take in?

When Jesus speaks of losing this life, He is specifically saying that this human life often gets into the way of eternal happiness, peace, and a true knowledge of God. We are created in the image of God, the Church teaches and the Scriptures bare out. Jesus is God and thus is the prime example for us, thank You God, to fashion our lives around it. The problem always is the world around us.

I see it all the time on social media. Good well-meaning Christians, Cursillitas, who are caught up in the world events, political statements, taking sides. This is exactly what Jesus was warning us against. The world affects us while we are to affect the world. When we get caught up in political views, this side is right or this side is wrong we start becoming of this world.

As Cursillistas we are to be that prime example to those we encounter as that example of eternity here on earth. We are called to above the mundane everyday occurrences that attempt and yes succeed at times to influence us in an earthly manner. Jesus’ words that we must lose our life to find life is exactly that. We must be always focused on God and our relationship with God.

The mystics found their way to be one with God. It is good to read the stories of the mystics and how they found oneness in God.

We are eternal beings. How can we find our way to living an eternal life, right now?

Deacon Tom Soper #283

Bring a Friend to Christ

From Our Spiritual Advisor:

Make a friend, be a friend, bring that friend to Christ. 

Dear Friends, 

As Cursillistas we are quite familiar (hopefully!) with this saying. I heard it recently again, and that got me pondering friendship and asking myself what that saying really means. 

It’s possible for us humans to have only a very few intimate friends, soul-mates, persons we’ve come to know and trust, usually over a long period of time, having shared many life experiences and grown in trust and vulnerability with one another. Those kinds of friendships don’t develop overnight. If that is what we primarily understand by the word, “friend” then it is easy enough to say, “I don’t need another friend” or “I don’t have time or energy to make another friend.” 

Most, if not all of us, come away from a Cursillo weekend with a new or renewed conviction of Christ’s unique love for us. And hopefully, we find ourselves wanting others to have this same experience of being loved in an overwhelming way. We want N and N to experience the grace of a Cursillo weekend and we start planning how and when to invite them. Maybe we’ve seen them at Mass; maybe they work alongside us; maybe they enjoy the same sports we do. Maybe that’s what the saying means. Make a friend, be a friend, bring that friend to Cursillo. GREAT!! DO IT!!! START NOW!

 However, as important as that is for the life of the Movement, the majority of folks “out there” will never live a Cursillo weekend, either because circumstances in their life won’t allow it or they simply have no interest, even after we’ve tried inviting them. Does that excuse us from friendship? As we grow in God’s unconditional love for us, we also grow in awareness of the preciousness of each person God has made. Awareness is so important, and being noticed and acknowledged is a way of extending friendship even to people we’ll only meet once or casually pass on the street or in the store. We make eye contact with the clerk behind the counter, the person who works alongside us in factory or office or hospital or greenhouse and notice in the other the presence of Christ – rejoicing or suffering, discouraged or heavily burdened, fearful or guilt-ridden, trying to do what is right despite occasional failures. The offer of friendship is a gesture of meeting another person, not as an object or a functionary, but as a human being with needs and desires like mine. I can respond with a smile or a nod that genuinely says, “I see you. I value you. I am your brother/sister; we’re on this human journey together and I want to offer you a bit of encouragement.” Even if I never meet that person again, I will have gifted him/her with a blessing that says, “You are noticed, significant and loved.” Through that simple gesture I am bringing that friend to Christ. 

People can experience God through us without our even mentioning God’s name. Perhaps there will be another chance encounter with that person. Perhaps a second or third one will flower into a “regular” friendship where mutual sharing of hopes and dreams, burdens and fears will be shared. Maybe this new friend will someday be an ideal candidate for a Cursillo weekend and Movement. We’ll want to celebrate that wholeheartedly! But even if our efforts to be Christ and to see Christ in another/others never results in a new Cursillista, we need not be discouraged if we have brought that friend to Christ by the genuine attention, respect and care we’ve given – if only for a moment. Thanks for the many ways God gives us to share friendship! Let’s do it!

Ultreya! De Colores, my Friends! 

Sister Edna Michel, OSF