By Stan Biggs

Kelowna lawyer - and Cursillo proponent - Tom Smithwick

WHY trade three days and three nights for something about which you know nothing, and which can’t be explained? 

And yet, for more than 70 years, hundreds of thousands of men and women on every continent have responded to an invitation to attend a Cursillo.

Several weeks ago, I invited my new friend Clinton to the Seton House of Prayer overlooking the City of Kelowna. 

The fires of 2003 ravaged the hillsides around this sacred space, leaving the core buildings intact – with a sense of divine intervention. 

Clinton and I were among the first to arrive on a Thursday evening for what was presented as a short course in Christian living – or Cursillo, as it has been known since being founded in Majorca, Spain by a group of Roman Catholic laymen in 1944.

By the end of the three days, my friend said he had been “higher than I have every been before.”

He was not alone, as businessmen, mechanics, lawyers, realtors and others experienced a different kind of ‘music’ together. 

Candidates, or cursillista, entered into a decades-old rhythm, as ordinary men painted a picture of an accessible faith in a loving God – who by all accounts, was present in every moment.

Clinton and his new friends unwittingly stood on the shoulders of a host of others – who, for more than 30 years in the Okanagan, have been part of the Cursillo family worldwide. 

A quarter century has passed since Kelowna lawyer Tom Smithwick made his first Cursillo. 

And yet, as though for the first time, Smithwick and others invested their best in pointing out that God has given far more than we have received. They’ve helped open up the runway for men to “come in for a landing,”as Smithwick puts it – discovering, in new ways, the love of God.

But that’s not the end of the story. What Smithwick terms  “the fourth day” is when the real work of the Cursillo begins. 

The goal of all cursillistas, he says, is to “infuse ideals of Christ into the fabric of society.” 

Candidates, Smithwick adds, return to the Okanagan valley with an understanding that “friendship is the key to bringing a Christian vision of the world to fulfillment.”

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Although many Christian groups have used the Cursillo method, rarely do the Roman Catholics joint-venture with other denominations as they do in the Okanagan. 

Although the men’s and women’s retreat in the spring are Catholic, the fall events are interdenominational – with Catholics and Protestants working together. It should be noted that persons of all faiths are welcomed at either.

Smithwick notes that so many interdenominational events over the past three decades have benefited from the fellowship ties birthed at a Cursillo weekend. 

Lay people, more than leaders, connect in innumerable ways – forming bonds of trust and respect which give weight to the words of Jesus: “They will know you are Christians by the love you have for one another.”

Countless ‘group reunions’ around the world provide a weekly context for participants to nourish their faith. Monthly meetings called Ultreyas bring larger groups together – in celebration, says Smithwick, of the realities of Christianity being “brought to life in the uniqueness, the originality, and in the creativity of each person.”

Friendship is key to the success of the movement; and like grass growing under concrete, a complex network of these deep connections has kept the ‘faith soil’ in many towns and cities, fertile and productive.

Many candidates return to serve at subsequent Cursillos – behind the scenes in the kitchen, or offering leadership during the weekend. 

Year after year, many of the same faces have their hands to the plow and have matured in their leadership roles in every area of life. During my own 14 years in the Okanagan, it has been extraordinary to witness the collateral consequence of faithful stewards keeping the Cursillo fire burning.

No visitor to Seton House could fail to notice, while driving past dozens of rebuilt homes and thousands of tree stumps, that God’s protective hand was on the property when fire raced destructively through our community. 

Better still, few Cursillo candidates ever fail to experience the love of Christ burning within, while being guided through the short course in Christian living known as Cursillo.

Short weeks after his first Cursillo, Clinton and I are new friends, and as he puts it, two brothers from different mothers. 

He invited my wife and our son for lunch at the half-way house where he is serving the last few months of a prison sentence. 

With our weekend receding into the past, we have been left with rich friendship and a renaissance of hope in the One who said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

December 2007