The School

“The Cursillo Movement originated with a School. The School, then, is what came first. It was that School that gave birth to the Cursillo movement, nurtured it, and made it strong enough to survive and branch out into a full-fledged movement of the Church. The School has always been and is to this day an element that is essential to the continuity and development of the movement. The School is an instrument of apostolic outreach to people who have lived the experience of a Cursillo weekend. It helps them discover, accept, and grow in their vocations, bringing them together so that together they can take on the responsibility of being leaders in the Church, in the Movement, and in their respective secular environments.

“The School has three converging dimensions. It is at the same time a school of holiness, a school of community, and a school of formation. It is a gathering of Christians who have set out in search of holiness and who are finding their way by following and imitating their one and only Teacher: Christ. The model of life taught by the School is life according to the Spirit, whose fruit is holiness. Life according to the Spirit stirs up every baptized person and requires each to follow and imitate Jesus Christ. The School is a community of Christians who, united in the atmosphere of a Group Reunion, seek every day to become more centered, more committed and more united, so as to accelerate in themselves, in the Movement, and in their environments the living out of what is fundamental to being a Christian. The members of the School must be formed according to the union which exists from their being members of the Church and citizens of human society. Formation, then, is a response to the call to growth and a continual process of maturation, of always bearing much fruit.” (The foregoing material is taken from The Fundamental Ideas of the Cursillo Movement authorized English translation of the original Spanish work given at Majorca, cradle of the Cursillo Movement, April 21, 1974.)

The School is the origin and continuing basis for the Cursillo Movement. The word “cursillo” means course of study which is a school. The movement is characterized as a kerygmatic movement, that is based on the word. All other aspects of the movement developed out of The School as a supplement or application but not as a replacement. Thus, the weekend was developed as “the introductory course” of The School. The group reunions were developed as “laboratories”. The ultreyas developed as opportunities for members to “witness” to how what they had learned in The School (the Cursillo Movement) has changed their lives or had given them life and their living it more abundantly. The heart and foundation of the movement remains the School which is patterned after the school of Christian living which Jesus established and taught his disciples, the first students of Christian living.