Postcursillo
Sustaining Our Ideal
To present the grandeur of an infinite ideal,
without offering at the same time the concrete means to make
it a reality in life, is to sow utopias;
what will result from this is inevitable disillusionment.
Any vision which is worth taking the trouble to keep alive
requires not only the greatness of the ideal
but the concrete means to make it attainable.
Lower Your Nets
The Postcursillo is the communitarian means (spiritual direction, group reunion, Ultreyas,
What is hoped for from the Postcursillo community is the same as what is expected of any other lay people in the Church, that they will build the Church in the world. It is important that after Cursillo the cursillista become a part of an ecclesial community that will help one develop into leaven. The end result of such an incorporation is a lay Christian who is at the same time a vibrant member of the Church and someone actively involved in the world.
The purpose of the Cursillo weekend is to bring people from the Precursillo to the Postcursillo stage. The Postcursillo is meant to continue the process begun during the Cursillo weekend—that of being converted and living out what is fundamental for being a Christian. With in the framework of the Postcursillo, the individual and group restlessness brought by the experience of the Cursillo weekend is kept alive, so that the Church and all the communities within which these individuals and groups are immersed are constantly being leavened with the spirit of the Gospel.
Postcursillo offers one an opportunity to pursue in greater depth the relationship discovered, initiated or deepened during the Cursillo weekend. Those relationships known as “the four encounters” - the encounter of oneself, with God, with the community and with the world. In the name of the Lord, the Church calls each and everyone of her members to holiness and to her mission of evangelizing the world. “All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of love.”
The Postcursillo is based on the fact that conversion is an ongoing process that never ends, and that environments can be transformed only to whatever extent the people who make up those environments are transformed. A good Postcursillo program helps cursillistas discover, accept, and responsibly take their place in the Church (the ecclesial community) and in the world (their environments).
The objective of the Postcursillo is for the cursillistas to find their own unique positions in the Church and in the world, and for the Postcursillo to provide them with the means necessary to live, in their own environments, their Christian life. The important thing about the Postcursillo is that it should provide an atmosphere and a format enabling one to actualize one’s full potential for becoming a saint and an apostle, according to one’s own charisms, so that the cursillistas can dedicate themselves to carrying out their own secular commitments as a responsive way of being where God wants them to be.
Within the Postcursillo there are two basic means for growing and preserving the Christian life: the Group Reunion for individuals, and the Ultreya for the community. The Group Reunion is directed primarily toward the good of the individual and the Ultreya toward the good of the community.
An isolated Christian is a paralyzed Christian.
The same is true of any group not connected with other groups.
The Postcursillo
provides the means for “ living and sharing of what is fundamental for being a Christian”.
The Fundamental Ideas of the Cursillo Movement