Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!  Because of the most recent women’s weekend, we have a wonderful group of 19 spirit filled women who now join the Belleville Diocesan Cursillo community!  Prayers of thanksgiving have been offered to our God of Love for the gift of His Holy Spirit that was lavishly poured out on all who attended the weekend.  Much joy was shared.

We remember those who make their intentions known through Roni’s email and prayer requests:  Prayers of thanksgiving and healing for Cusillistas Charlotte Kaffer who is now cancer free, successful back surgery for Katie Emge and a successful surgery for Cathy Lilley!  Also thanksgiving for a successful surgery for Jo Inman’s daughter, and the 16 year old, Josh from Immaculate Conception parish who had a tumor removed from his spine and found to be non cancerous!  God is good! 

We continue to offer prayers of healing, strength and peace for Cursillistas, their friends and family members who are suffering either from emotional, or physical illnesses or cancer;  Phil Wahlig’s wife Nancy who is undergoing cancer treatment, Roni Juracek’s nephew Ethan, Julie Bostick’s brother in law Tim who suffered a heart attack, Anna Feurer’s stepson Dan, his mother Rita and father Denny,  Cindy Ponder undergoing radiation treatment for breast cancer, Nick Lang’s brother David sick with pneumonia and loss of weight, Susan Sherwin’s friends Marge – surgery to remove bladder cancer,  and friends Ruth, and her husband Bill.  Rachel Thackrey’s husband Walter, Niki O’Keefe’s friend Stephanie (Huntington’s) her mother and father, Ken Phelps friend Pastor Marty Springer (prostate cancer), Deb Funfsinn’s father Harold Martyn on Hospice care, Marie Caddell’s step sister undergoing treatment for cancer, Esther Reardon’s step grandson Patrick in treatment and recovery from addiction, and Mary Jo Ganey in treatment for breast cancer. 

Several Cursillistas experienced the loss of a loved one over the past several months; let us remember the repose of the souls of:  Melvin Brush (Mike Brush’s father), Robert Littman (Rosemary Littman’s son), Efren Naguit (friend of Kathy Schaarf), Travis Fletcher (friend of Linn Lebonick), June Springman (mother of Joan Sherwood), Eugene Maurer (Dave Maurer’s father), Anna Feurer’s uncle and the mother of Diann Kehrer.   May these and all the souls of our family and friends who have gone home to Jesus rest in the peace of Christ.  Let’s continue to pray for strength and courage for the families of these Cursillistas as they endure the days ahead without the physical presence of their loved ones. 

Let’s remember our military families and the safety of those loved ones who are separated because of war.  Prayers for employment continue for Cursillistas and their family members who are looking for work.   And we offer continued prayers for our youth, especially those who recently attended the DYC in Collinsville and for Bob and Katie Emge as they travel on pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land with a small group lead by Bishop Braxton!  

Also just an FYI… Althoff Catholic High School is presenting the spring musical “Guys and Dolls” on April 13, 14, & 15.  My son Sean would appreciate your prayers as he has the male lead in the musical.  Also if anyone is able to attend, we would love your physical presence and support for Althoff Catholic Performing Arts.

This is quite a long list of prayer requests this season of lent.  There’s no better time than Lent to increase our prayers, fasting and almsgiving.  May we continue to offer prayers and palanca throughout the year for others who will be encountering Christ on their Cursillo weekends in the weeks ahead.   

May your Easter be rejoicing in De Colores!

Love, joy and peace;
+Susan Ditch

From The Lay Director
PAT CATES

GREETINGS TO OUR NEW CURSILLISTAS

I would like to welcome each of our newest Cursillistas into the Belleville Cursillo Community. Your Cursillo brothers and sisters will continue to pray for you as you begin your fourth day journey. The love and support of our Cursillo Community is a great blessing in my life and I hope that you find it a blessing in your life. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call your sponsor or any member of Secretariat.

ALL CURSILLISTAS

Everyone should be aware by now of the sad and very difficult decision the Secretariat made to cancel the Men’s Weekend for this year. At decision point, we felt we did not have enough candidates to provide these men with a “Cursillo Weekend”. It is extremely difficult to provide a friendship group concept without enough candidates to form groups. It was and will always be our hope to provide the same level of joy and friendship that each of us experienced on our weekend. For weeks, we prayed for more candidates, in the end we listened with our hearts and remembered the elation we felt sharing that time with our fellow candidates; we wanted them to have what we have, knowing this is what helps on our Cursillo journey every day. To our utter dismay, after we made a painful decision, we did have last minute candidates; we are taking steps to ensure this will not happen again. On a more positive note, we had a tremendous Women’s Weekend; a total of nineteen women experienced the awesome influence of the Power of the Spirit!

I think now is the time to look ahead to determine how we can bring more people to an even deeper relationship with Jesus through Cursillo in Christianity. On the Weekend we learn that we need to make a friend, be a friend, and bring that friend to Christ. In order to further pursue this endeavor, the Secretariat has been discussing various ideas to make the School of Leaders more accessible throughout the Belleville Diocese. One suggestion is to have several groups in different towns all studying the same material. The material used at the School of Leaders is designed to further our Fourth Day Journey through continuing our spiritual growth and commitment to Christ and the Cursillo movement. If we can begin to establish this concept, members of Secretariat are prepared to assist in establishing additional School of Leader groups.  It is clear there will need to be further discussion and development of this concept. Another successful initiative found that several Parish Priests were open to us speaking about Cursillo at the end of Mass, to be followed with a meeting to talk with interested parishioners. Again, members of Secretariat are more than willing to assist with this endeavor. Experience has shown that this practice has a positive impact in “spreading the Word” and generating interest in Cursillo.

Secretariat is only a small part of our Cursillo community. 

We (the members of Secretariat) value the opinion and actively seek new ideas and suggestions from the entire Belleville Fourth Day Community. A list of Secretariat members (names, etc.) are in the back of this newsletter, please do not hesitate to get in touch with any or all of us.

I would also like to extend a sincere thank you again to Mary Feurer for her years of service to the Secretariat in the position of Post Cursillo chair.  This post is now being turned over to Karen Rau.  Karen, the Secretariat welcomes you to your new role and we look forward to working with you!

In closing, I would like to refer to Romans 8:28—“We know that all things work together for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” We are all called according to His purpose.

Love, Joy, and Peace

DeColores

Pat Cates

School of Leaders
Ralph Bostick

Hello Everyone.  A couple of hours ago I was blessed to attend the closing for the Women’s Cursillo #34. As I sat there listening to the priest tell each lady, “Christ is counting on you.”  and then to their response, “And I on him.” , my mind wandered back to my weekend and the feeling of euphoria that I had as I made my response to the priest.  I had a mission and the Lord was counting on me! I was going to set the world on fire. My plan was to run out and tell anyone who would listen about how they should make a Cursillo weekend, of all the wonderful friends they will meet along the way, and how it would allow them to look at their faith life in a whole new way.

Well, there I was sitting at the closing when I realized the following: I have not been able to get one person on a weekend.  I do not invite as often as I did my first few years.  My passion that once flamed high is now just a hot coal under a blanket of ash. I realized this and was saddened at my lack of drive and humiliated at my lack of progress in my “Make a friend, Be a Friend, Bring a friend to Christ.”.  I am disappointed in myself, and I am probably not alone.

When the Secretariat (of which I am a member and I was in total agreement with the decision) discerned to cancel the 2012 men’s weekend due to a very low number of candidates, I, along with every member of the men’s team, felt that it was my (our) fault.  I felt that there was more I could have done; something I should have done better or different.  Thousands of things run through your mind in hind sight, but the cancellation made me realize that we have a problem and that we need help.

Well, when I was a young person and I had a problem I was told by my teachers, friends and coworkers to research it, take classes if you need to, or ask others for help. All of these ideas are great advice. So I am going to take that advice and run with it, and I am going to ask you to run with me.

On April 16th 2012 at 7:00 P.M., we will start getting together for our Belleville Diocese Cursillo School of Leaders and I would like you all to join us.  We will open with a prayer, have a short discussion about the scripture readings for the day and then we are going to have an open discussion about recruiting for our weekends.  We need your help to do this. We need every Cursillista in the Belleville diocese to talk about Cursillo. Talk about how your life has changed since your weekend. At Ultreya we are asked to witness to others of our Cursillo experience and how it has impacted our lives. Doing that is nice and it reminds us of our weekend but come on; we have already made a weekend!  The ones we need to witness to are our children, our families,  our neighbors, the people with which we work and play.  I think that most of us will share with others when we eaten at a good restaurant, read a good book, or saw a good movie.  You’re excited to share and hope that they will get out of their meal or their book what you did. Let’s do the same for Cursillo. Come join us at the School of Leaders on April 16th and let’s brainstorm on how to fill our weekends.  Remember what each and every one of us heard on ‘OUR’ weekend, “Christ is counting on you.”

School of Leaders meets every 3rd Monday of the month (March—Nov) 7pm
St. Joseph’s Parish Center in Freeburg.  All Cursillistas are welcome.