From our Spiritual Advisor
Greetings Cursillistas. As I am writing this, I am getting ready to enter a new phase in my life. Some people call this phase “retirement”. It is a time in our lives that is filled with the unknown which makes some of us a little apprehensive. Whenever we enter into the unknown, we have to trust. We have to trust that we have prepared ourselves for what may lie ahead and we have to trust that God will provide. So it becomes a time in which we should develop a close relationship with the Holy Spirit, if we haven’t done so yet.
In Paul’s Letter to the Romans he says, “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:14-17) Do we not have an awesome God?! I mean, what god does that? Think about it for a moment, the God of the Universe, the God who created everything that is seen and unseen desires to call us sons and daughters and what’s more, we are coheirs of the Kingdom with God in the person of Jesus Christ. Our God is not one who lords His power over us, but rather He desires to bring us into His family. There has never been any other god throughout all of human history that has desired to have a relationship with mortal man.
If we truly believe that, then we should have nothing to fear no matter what comes our way. Think back for a moment to the weekend in which you lived your Cursillo. On the last day of the weekend, were you afraid? Or did you feel that the Holy Spirit was with you? From my perspective, I did not want to leave Sunday evening. I found Jesus there with those men and I wanted to stay with them, but that’s not what we are called to do. We are not to keep the Spirit that God has given us to ourselves, we are to take Him out and let Him be known by all those in which we come in contact. We should never forget our mission: “Make a friend, be a friend, bring a friend to Christ.” Our lives are full of changes or new phases, and these are and should be viewed as opportunities to bring other people to Christ. No matter where we are, we should by word and deed spread the Gospel. I think we can all agree that in the world we live in today, there is a desperate need for people to know the real Jesus Christ. Not the one who is “just” a nice person who lived a long time ago, but the one who IS God and the one who wants to bring us into relationship with Him. For us to bring Christ to others, we must first know Him and we get to know Him through the three legs of the stool. Piety, Study, and Action. As we desire to get closer to God (piety), we want to learn more about Him (study), and as we learn more, we want to share our love for Him (action).
Each new day brings with it new challenges and new opportunities and we have so little time on earth. As the Psalmist says: “Seventy is the sum of our years, or eighty, if we are strong; Most of them are toil and sorrow; they pass quickly, and we are gone.” (Psalm 90:10) So we need to make the most of our time here on earth. We do that by being the hands and feet of Jesus. As we continue life’s journey, let us be mindful that when we begin a new “phase” in our lives it is also a new opportunity to bring others to Christ and that God the Father has given us not a spirit of slavery, but rather a Spirit of adoption and therefore, as His sons and daughters, we have nothing to fear.
Ultreya,
Deacon Bruce Alge
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