With the beginning of this Advent season my journey through these newsletters, comes to an end. However, the connection, from the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit, will not cease, but continue in prayer and support for our brothers and sisters in Portugal, Korea, Spain, Venezuela and St Lucia, who will become your OMCC.

The Year of Faith closes on the Feast of Christ the Universal King. We think about Faith and how we as Cursillistas can carry that light of Faith. I share with you a story I read recently.

An apology for the late date of this newsletter.  There have been many matters for the OMCC to attend to as we come closer to the World Encounter.

October is a month filled with beautiful Feast days - and the call of Pope Francis to peace is so important, especially in our daily living out of the Charism.

"To be a Christian today, we must be faithful to the Gospel, open to all realities and responsive to the people."

These were the words of a layman, Eduardo Bonnin Aguilo, speaking of the foundational Charism of the Cursillos in Christianity.

Here in the OMCC Executive Committee we have spent many hours preparing for our VII World Encounter. But there must always be time for balance in the tripod of Prayer, Study and Action.

This month I have been reading the Encyclical "Lumen Fidei" from Pope Francis, (given to me by one of my sons.) There is so much there that resonates in our Cursillo movement. I recommend your reading, but for now I will just share a few passages that spoke to me of Cursillo.

Once again our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has called us to make a difference. He urges us to be revolutionaries, changing the world one heart at a time by sharing God's love. He went on to say that the grace of Christ gave people, "a heart that loves, a heart that suffers, a heart that rejoices with others, a heart full of tenderness for those who b ear the wounds of life and feel like they are on the periphery of
society."

As our term of office draws close to an end I need to emphasise that which is most important for us to remember in our journey of the Fourth Day:

The love that God has, cannot be measured, contained, explained, understood, compared or seen. For it is quite simply, the most pure and authentic love you will ever know and - this is the Good News, God in Christ loves us, that we must spread as we live out our fourth day, and especially in our Group Reunions and Ultreyas where we share our Piety, Study and Action.

The great feast of Pentecost is near – the birthday of Mother Church. We give thanks and rejoice in the gifts that the Spirit brings.

We have cause for celebration – The Liturgical Season of Easter, and a new Pope.
I pray that the glory of the Risen Christ touches each one of you – reinvigorating your faith as we
journey in this Special Year of Faith. I offer for your reflection the words of ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely
in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties,
problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God,
taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith."

You are in my prayers as I continue my Lenten Journey. I recalled with gratitude to God the blessings received when the original Charismatic gift of the Holy Spirit was given to Eduardo Bonnin, and how his sharing this gift with others, has provided us with such riches over the years. On the anniversary of his death, I asked for his intercession as we strive to continue spreading the message of God's unconditional love, "God in Christ loves us", through the
method developed and offered by those early cursillo disciples.

Benedict XVI said that "the center of existence, what which makes sense of the full and firm hope of
the road, often difficult, is faith in the encounter with Jesus Christ."
The theme of our Encounter is Friendship. That is carried out- through Him, with Him, and in Him. Our
VII World Encounter (our journey) finishes on the feast of Christ the King, the Sunday which closes the
Year of Faith.

The Charism of Cursillo is to live De Colores (filled with grace), giving testimony in the movable square metre
that surrounds us by the best means, that is friendship. This is the Gift of God that gave origin to the Cursillos
of Christianity Movement.

As we begin a new Church year in our Christian journey, we prepare in faith, with hope and longing, for
the coming of the Christ Child. He can fill us with joy as we are graced by his presence among us.
We cursillistas recognise such a graced existence throughout the year – our Palanca continually
reinforces that belief. I do not apologise for reminding you each newsletter of the importance of prayer
and Palanca, as we live out our Fourth day. We have the best tools to assist us in this task in our Group
Reunions and Ultreyas.

It is no accident that the 7th World Encounter in 2013 will finish on November 24th – the
Feast of Christ the King, and the closing of the Year of Faith. When Archbishop Coleridge spoke
of the meeting of grace and faith it struck a chord with me. We must thank God that the
method of our Movement gives us all the tools, through our Groups and Ultreyas, to make this
meeting of grace and faith a reality. The power of this is evident in the fruit of our Palanca
offerings, and the beauty is evident in the friendships we share throughout the world.

I share with you words from Pope Benedict in his first Encyclical Deus Caritas Est:
"Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Likewise, at the root of all evangelization lies not a human plan of expansion, but rather the desire to share the inestimable gift that God has wished to give us, making us sharers in his own life."

My constant reminder of the importance of PALANCA can be found in many places.

Pope Benedict XVI encouraging prayer, fully trusting in the Lord to meet our desires, stressed that, "to meet the requests we have in our hearts, there is no better way to put the power of our prayer in that which pleases God more."

To be on a Pilgrimage is to journey through Christ to the Father under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, with the help of Mary and all the saints as you bring your brothers and sisters along with you...

St Paul wrote in Rom.12 “Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in
your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

This is an early edition as my husband David and I are en route to L’Hermitage, the ancestral home of the Marist Brothers in France. There we will stay in their first ‘home’ built by St Marcellin Champagnat himself, assisted by the first novices...

My thoughts and prayers are with you all as we move towards the great feast of Pentecost. May the Spirit be your guiding light in the coming days...