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