THE CURSILLOS IN CHRISTIANITY IN THE ARCHDIOCESE OF DAVAO 1964 – 2014

(compiled, researched and written by Bong Baldoza MC #188)
3rd of a series

Impregnation of the Movement

The diocesan president of the Mallorca branch of Catholic Action knew Eduardo and recognized in him someone he considered to be a prime candidate for leadership in Catholic Action. He invited Eduardo to the second ‘cursillo’ for Pilgrim Leaders that was to take place at the monastery of Lluc during Holy Week of 1943. From that experience Eduardo extracted the ideas and concepts he felt he could apply and use to satisfy the restlessness that disturbed him. He wanted to find a way to take the reality of Christian life to the real environments, those environments where the young men of the barracks lived, he being an enlisted personnel in the army. Besides preparing for the pilgrimage, he felt that the ideal thing would be to find a similar way to interest people in the other pilgrimage, the pilgrimage towards the Heavenly Father, which all of life is, and to do it in such a way so as to ensure that the message would also reach, in fact reach mainly those, who were not, or did not think that they were Christians, the ‘far away’.

The living Christ of the Gospel became Eduardo’s ‘north star’, his constant motivation and his guide. Following the plan of the Holy Spirit he studied the environments, outlined the method to his young acquaintances. From then on, they began to win friends, writing the Good News on the hearts of those they came in contact with. He outlined his thinking in a paper which he named “The Study of the Environment”, which, being properly understood, is known in Mallorca as the dorsal fin or the rudder of the Cursillo Movement.

The Study of the Environment took shape and form as a rollo when it was presented by Eduardo in the diocesan seminary of Mallorca on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 1943. It was a moment of Grace, a moment of the Charism. Through the Power of the Holy Spirit, what became known throughout the entire world as the Cursillo Movement, had just begun.
The breath of the Spirit touched Eduardo early in his life, impregnating his soul with the Good News of a close and a living Christ, who loves us in the normality of our lives. He was then, and still called himself to the end of his life, an apprentice Christian; filled with faith, touched by the Holy Spirit. After many years of reading and meditation, consultation and prayers, the Ideal of his life was to share with as many as possible that God loves us. For him, it was especially important to reach those ‘far away’, inviting them to live in Grace by means of one method. That method, the method of Cursillo, is Friendship.

Eduardo dedicated all his time to study, and as the Gospel says, he left the ninety-nine saints to go after the ‘others’: To win them, not for Santiago and the pilgrimage, but for Christ and His life. Eduardo shared his ideas with some of the young people from Catholic Action – José Ferragut, Joan Mir, Andreu Rullán Riutort Jaime Bartholomew and William Estarellas Riutort, they too became infected with this new method. Together they decided to put it into practice with the help and guidance of Fr. Sebastian Gaya and the blessing of Bishop Juan Hervas, then co-adjutor Bishop of Mallorca, who later became Bishop on December 22, 1947, succeeding Bishop Jose Miralles who died the day after.