STRUCTURE OF IDEAS (Part 1)

Source: National Cursillo Center Mailing – April 2004

The first part of our upcoming National Encounter, God willing, at Seattle University, in
Seattle WA, on July 29 – August 1, we will share workshops based on the book
"Structure of Ideas". This book is a work of a group of laypersons, headed by Eduardo
Bonnín, all guided by a deep knowledge and love toward the work of the Cursillos, which
is based on life and the adventures of each day.

Written during the time of great controversy in the Movement and for such reason, the
“National Secretariat of Mexico -the first National Secretariat of Cursillos that was
created in the world- dared to print and to distribute Vertebracion (Structure of Ideas)”,
(Historia y Memoria de Cursillos, F. Forteza, p.160). “What we present is neither a law
nor a rule; it is an attempt to systematize what common sense, teaching and experience
suggest regarding the work of the Cursillos (Structure of Ideas, Prologue, page 2,).

In order to not distort what the authors try to present in this marvelous work (book), I will
cite what is written by them in the "Preliminary Notes" of the book, (1st edition, and p.4).
"What we present intends and proposes to attain vertebration of criteria in the Work of
the Cursillos in Christianity. We understand by criterion the nucleus of ideas which,
based on the inclination of the individual to expose himself without reservations to the
truth, gives him a measure for what is certain and a sense of accuracy. Vertebration is
the orderly and systematic evaluation of the truths that are embraced, actually or
potentially, in this nucleus of ideas.”

The book displays essential points "of the laboratory of ideas that constituted the
office/library of Bonnín" (F. Forteza - Historia y Memoria de Cursillos - p.159).
Furthermore, “we intend to treat only what is essential in the Cursillos in Christianity; on
the periphery there is left, then, the consideration of many things that may be important
or accidental” (Last paragraph of the Preliminary Notes - Structure of Ideas; p. 4).

Let us move now to the content of the book. The book is divided into four major parts:

1. The Method – What is being done

A) A preparation Precursillo so that man seeks Christ

B) A reactive - Cursillo so that he encounters Him (living)

so that he knows Him (knowledge)
so that he accepts Him (conviction)

C) A cause Poscursillo so that he follows Him

1) Group Reunion
a) with whomever you wish
b) with whomever you should

Copyright © 2004, National Cursillo Center. All rights reserved.

 2) Ultreya
Witnessing and sharing life experiences
D) Operational Structures
1) Secretariat
2) School of Leaders

2. Mentality – Why it is being done – Way of thinking that characterizes a person or a

group. In our case, the founder.

3. Purpose – Why is it being done

A) Immediate Purpose – The Living of what is Fundamental for being a Christian
B) End Purpose – The backbone (vertebrae) of Christianity

4. Systematic – What and how is it being done

A) Spirit
B) Criteria

These are the four parts. Normally, emphasis is placed on the method of Cursillo
especially to the 3-Day Cursillo. In this mailing we would like to concentrate on the
Mentality and the Purpose of the Movement of Cursillos in Christianity.

On many occasions I have heard Eduardo Bonnín say that "the Cursillos are still being
inaugurated; it is still in its infancy". This is a great truth that I have verified on my
journeys throughout the nation. I can verify that many leaders take more care in trying
"to improve” the Movement - something that in itself does not need improvement since it
is not an improvisation, neither something that fell from heaven into the hands of the
founder, but was a deep and long study arising from the restlessness experienced by
Eduardo Bonnín and a group of youths from Mallorca. From this study, Eduardo Bonnin
attentively formulated the rollo "Study of the Environment".

Others choose to apply their own way. A way that may be good in itself and with very
good intentions- but they lack the understanding of the Mentality of the originator in
applying the precise ways and thoughts. For this and many other factors, there is
deviation in moving towards the true direction of the Movement of Cursillos in
Christianity. Therefore, it is beneficial to share some essential points about the Mentality
of the Cursillos.

Mentality of the Initiators of Cursillos

The world was wrong because the baptized were not Christians.

What was the laity doing to save the world?

A few of the laity worked in saving souls, which again were absorbed by the corrupted
environments in which they lived. It was the integral man that needed to be saved.

Copyright © 2004, National Cursillo Center. All rights reserved.

Others affiliated themselves in Associations, which appeared to be established for those
who were already “good people”. They operated to preserve from being corrupted. They
attempted to satisfy the hunger for God, without realizing that there was no hunger for
God.

The solution was something else:

If the environments were absorbing men, the logical thing was to transform the
environments.

The way to transform the environments was to awaken and encourage the community to
Christianize from the inside, as a form of ferment.

If there was no hunger for God, the indispensable thing was not satisfying the hunger, but
awakening the hunger, and once awake, to maintain it progressively.

Instead of enclosing or grouping the good ones, the preferred way was to choose the
better ones in order to return them, as Christians, to their environments: "Free him and let
him go", was the order of Christ after Lazarus’s resurrection;

The Cursillos would put its emphasis not in “doing” Christian things, but in "being”
Christian.
- “Being” a Christian is to live Christ.
- “Doing” Christian things is to live each actual moment in the name of
Christ.

Therefore, they did not choose the Association - without cornering it or despising it - but
chose an apostolic movement based on the associative strength of friendship.

Mentality or ideology of the dedicated founder that leads into the practical
realization of the Cursillos in Christianity

a) A triumphant concept of Christianity, that is the unique and true integral solution of
all the human problems, in comparison with the conceptual bourgeois, static and
inoperative conformist which the Christian does not have, only the name that usurp it.

b) A dynamic vision of militant Catholicism, understanding the apostolate not as a

superabundance, but as a demand for life that, far from being carried out in a bureaucratic
organization, constitutes the determined vanguard of the Kingdom of God, the living and
operative ferment of the Church.

c) A principle of sincere dissatisfaction, upright and hopeful, the only possible point of
departure for every efficient action and inexhaustible fountain of multiple and always
better realizations.

d) An exact and profound knowledge of today’s men, their problems and their anguish,
and also a live, experimental knowledge, obtained not by statistical formulas or by

Copyright © 2004, National Cursillo Center. All rights reserved.

practical, simple manuals, but learned from life itself and from the intimate sharing with
men that the evangelical ferment needs to vitalize.

e) A deep conviction of the insufficiency or non-adaptation of certain methods to obtain

the essential objective of every apostolic action. A conviction far from exteriorized
lamentations or resigned to the fatality of the events. It prompts with growing interest the
vitalization of all of value and to the search of new and fertile horizons.

f) A firm conviction that it was really possible that as many living at the margin of
religiosity feel the strong awakening by Grace and that, regardless of how far away they
are from Christ, they are capable of surrendering totally to Him, provided that things of
Christ and His Church are presented as they exist, omitting if necessary any personal
preferences or criteria, regardless of how rooted these preferences and criteria were, at
the final outcome they were nothing but accidental aspects.

g) The firm hope that upon these experiences the same thing would happen as in the time
of Christ: the Samaritans and Zacchaeus would become the most dynamic apostles of the
Lord.

h) An intense effort to find a technique of concrete realization that, traced in the apostolic
procedures, kept in mind the personal problems and the concrete demands of each
individual to solve the problems at the core, with the solution coming from Christ and His
Grace, accepted with strength, which influences their entire life.

i) The conviction that the solution was simple and, because it is simple, universal. The
Catholicism of the faith is effectively lived in the Cursillo at confronting the same
solution and the same environment, although launched to distinct horizons of different
classes and diverse cultures.

De Colores - Jorge Barceló

(References: Structure of Ideas - Eduardo Bonnín, Bernardo Vadell and Francisco

Forteza; Mentality of the Cursillos in Christianity Msgr. Jaime Capó; Editions Aguas
Buenas - Msgr. Jaime Capó; Historia y Memoria de Cursillos - F. Forteza; Cursillos of
Cursillos - National Cursillo Center).

To be continued in the June 2004 National Mailing.

Copyright © 2004, National Cursillo Center. All rights reserved.