CURSILLO
Brief History : The name Cursillo, is Spanish, meaning short course and is often associated with a 3-Day weekend - which is only one aspect of the Cursillo Movement. The proper name is Cursillo de Cristianidad (short course of Christianity). The Movement came to birth in the movements of renewal that preceded the second Vatican Council. The liturgical movement, the Scriptural renewal, Catholic Action and other movements of the lay apostolate had begun years before the Council. Everywhere in the Church, people were seeking to find ways of "bringing the Church to life in the hearts of men" (Romano guardini). The Cursillo Movement came from the work of such individuals.
The first stirrings of what later was to become the Cursillo Movement began on the Island of Mallorca during World War II. The Spanish Civil War had ended in 1939, and the years after the Civil War were a time of ferment in the Spanish Church. Before the war, a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James at Compostela had been planned. This spiritual journey to the great Spanish pilgrimage center of the Middle Ages would provide a time for the young men and women of Spain to dedicate themselves in a renewed way to the work of the apostolate. After being postponed several times by the disruption of war, it was finally rescheduled for 1948.
The spirit of pilgrimage is a spirit of restlessness, of dissatisfaction with spiritual lukewarmness, of moving onward, of "ultreya." It is also a spirit of brotherhood among fellow pilgrims. The pilgrim style has marked much of the spirituality of the Cursillo Movement.
They worked as a leaders' team that prayed together, shared their Christian lives together, studied together, planned together, acted together and evaluated what they had done together. Out of their common efforts, something new in the life of the Church was born. Church renewal, spiritual renewal, pastoral renewal, the pilgrim style, a pastoral plan, teamwork among leaders.
Membership : The movement spread rapidly with the early centers carrying the Cursillo to nearby dioceses. As of 1981, almost all of the 160 dioceses in the United States had introduced the Cursillo Movement.
Today it is a worldwide movement with centers in nearly all South and Central American countries, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Yugoslavia, Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and in several African countries.
Goals : To explain Cursillo to someone who has never experienced Cursillo is at best, difficult. Often, for those who have experienced Cursillo it is still somewhat mystifying. This is not because the Cursillo Movement is a "secret" organization. The reason behind the mystery is God. No one can fully explain how God touches each person in His special/unique way throughout the various elements of the Cursillo Movement.
Contact: 366 Cabildo St., Intramuros, Manila
Tel. 818-1768
National President - Justice Jose Y. Feria
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THE HOLY NAME SOCIETY
Brief History : The Confraternity of the Most Holy Name of God and Jesus is an indulgenced confraternity in the Catholic Church. The primary object of the society is to promote due love and reverence for the Holy Name of God and Jesus Christ. The secondary object is to suppress blasphemy, perjury, oaths of any character that are forbidden, profanity, unlawful swearing, improper language, and, as far as the members can, to prevent those vices in others [Pius IV, 13 April 1564]. It had its origin in the Council of Lyons, 1274, which prescribed that the faithful should have a special devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, that reparation might be made for insults offered to it by Albigenses and other blasphemers. The Friars Preachers were preaching everywhere with the Zeal of St. Dominic; it was natural, then, that Gregory X selected the Dominicans to preach the devotion, which he did by a letter to Blessed John of Vercelli, master general of the order. The master general immediately wrote to all the provincials of the order, expressing the pope's wish, and enjoining upon all the duty of laboring for its fulfillment. The brethren gave their best energies in executing the command, preaching everywhere the power and glory of the Holy Name of Jesus; and to give permanency to the devotion excited in the hearts of the people, it was ordained that in every Dominican church, an altar of the Holy Name should be erected, and that societies or confraternities under the title and invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus should be established.
Membership : The acts of the general chapters of the order held since 1571 contain numerous regulations and admonitions insisting upon zeal in propagating the confraternity. Great encouragement to the development of the society was given at the close of the nineteenth century by Pope Leo XIII, who decreed through the Congregation of Indulgences, 20 May, 1896, that the bishops may dispense from the Clementine decree Quaecumque, requiring that there should be only one confraternity in a town or city. Before this, the society had existed in many churches of various cities of the United States, by virtue of the dispensations obtained from Rome. Since then branches of the society have multiplied very rapidly and in several dioceses; following the example set in the Archdiocese of New York, 21 May, 1882, they have been formed into diocesan unions under a director general appointed by the ordinary. Being thus united, the men of the society in the United States [they number about 500,000] are able to accomplish great good by public yearly processions of many thousands professing reverence for the Name of Jesus Christ, and abhorrence of blasphemy, profanity, and immorality. They are required to receive Holy Communion in a body at least once every three months; in most places the rule prescribes Communion on the second Sunday of every month, when they may gain plenary and partial indulgences granted by Gregory XIII.
Contact: #8 Biak na Bato St., Quezon City
Tel. 743-7757
Director - Fr. Jaime Boquiren, O.P.
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