Your Eminence,

Your Excellences, Reverend Monsignors, Reverend Priests

Dear brothers and sisters Cursillistas from around Europe!

A very special greeting on behalf of the Executive Committee of the WORLD ORGANISATION OF THE CURSILLO MOVEMENT (OMCC).

De Colores!

 

The Cursillos Movement (CM/MCC) was born in the forties of last century, one of the most turbulent periods in the History of Mankind, in a Europe devastated by war, in a world troubled by clutter, and avid of peace and more and more ignorant of the things of God. In such era, Cursillos were an adequate response to the challenges that Europe was living then, especially in front of the growing De-Christianization that occurred along those days’ time. It was not an easy task, and not always well understood, even within the Church, because the CM for those years was avant-garde (and as we all know, vanguard must to renew and to this must to be revolutionary).

The CM anticipated, in advance of many years, much of what came to become reality in the Church by the Council Vatican II. It was forefront, so it grew and gave fruit.

Based on its original charism, Cursillos Movement presented a proposal for a conversion and a challenge to holiness in normality. Holiness for men and women in the simplicity of their daily living testimony. Being a saint at home, being a saint in the employment, and being a saint in society. Being a saint wearing suit and tie, or the blue suit of a worker. Saint everywhere!

By promoting the encounter with oneself, a so special encounter with Christ, and the inevitable encounter with the others, the Cursillo transforms the life of thousands of men and women, and helps to sanctify the world, evangelizing the environments and the lives.

The Movement only loses efficacy when it separates itself from the charism and it changes its first and most important objective that is a person-to-person evangelization, through friendship, in order to ferment the Gospel in all environments.

As well, the world of today, and especially Europe, lives in difficult and troubled days. So for, we are once more called to be a nowadays forefront!

On a continent as Europe, in which laity opened paths to fundamentalism, somehow people wanted to "kill" the idea of God.

We must face this ours historical moment with courage. With courage and fearless.

Do not be afraid! Don ́t be afraid, said the Holy Father St. John Paul II. «Non abbiate paura!!! »

During his visit to Portugal, Pope Benedict XVI challenged the Christians saying that he was counting on us to the re-evangelization of Europe.

We will not be afraid, I say to you, because that's what our Pope Francis exhorts us to.

At the hearing granted to participants of the III World Congress of Ecclesial Movements and New Communities, on November 22nd, 2014, Pope Francis addressed us that “we must maintain the freshness of our charism, respect the freedom of each person, and always strive for communion” among Christians; and he also said we should not have the temptation to cage in the Holy Spirit because it passes through us to find creative answers to the formidable challenges of the contemporary world.

Sorry for my harsh words, but we did not lived the Cursillo experience to spend being just good people, to reduce our action to the attendance of the sacraments, or just to be helpers of our parish priest. Christ did not call us to a Cursillo to be "employees" of the Church, but to be messengers of the joy of the Gospel by our testimony of faith, and our quest for holiness in the normalcy of our lives. In the world!

That's it what Christ expects from us! He wants us to be His messengers close to everybody ... near everyone!

And when I say everyone, I mean really everyone! The ones with more needs, the more fragile and, above all, the poorest of the poor: those who have nothing, for they have no God in their lives, since they are away from Him. It is to this what we are called, to take the love that Christ has for all. For all of us!

We ought to know be the Church of our days and for our days. Let’s learn to be the Church for men and women of today! Here, and especially out there in the world, in Europe, in each Country, in our place, on the street where we live! Be saints and announce the love that God has for us, and which is revealed by His son Jesus!

We must keep us all united around our true charism, based on the Cursillos’ Fundamental Ideas, now revised and edited in a new redaction. We are a Roman Catholic Church Movement recognized by the Holy See with the publication of the Pontifical Decree which approved our statutes.

Let us proclaim, loudly, the gift of our founding charism and, with our life, our voice, our gestures, be testimony of the life, voice and gestures of Christ to those who do not know Him yet.

Let us be, without fear, the vanguard of the Church of Christ alive, and agents of regeneration of our Europe.

Let’s be like our admired friend, who called himself as a "Christian's Apprentice", and from whom the Bishop of Mallorca Monsignor Xavier Salinas, on February 5, 2015, began the first act of "The initiation process of Beatification and Canonization of Eduardo Bonnín”.

Christ is counting on us!

De Colores!

OMCC Executive Committee

Francisco Salvador

OMCC President

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Papal Audience