It is with great pleasure that I inform you that John Symonds of Trinity, Fredericksburg will be your Assistant Lay Director for this year. John has been a dedicated and very hard working member of the secretariat for the past several years and has a great love for our movement and method. John and I will be working hard with the rest of your secretariat to take Cursillo forward during these times of uncertainty and challenge. Welcome John to your new responsibilities.

Let me start by saying I cannot do this job all by myself or even with the secretariat alone. Each and every one of you is a member of this movement in Virginia and it is together that we will succeed in bringing identified leaders to Christ by way of a methodology that is time-proven to work. We are and can be an effective force within our individual parishes and in the diocese as we model Christian community in action.

Our Pastoral Plan calls for active involvement in the life of our community and that takes the efforts of us all. To accomplish this ideal, we all need to focus on strengthening our 4th Day with active Group Reunions so that we may be encouraged and accountable to one another. Attend Ultreya or form an Ultreya in your region if one is not active. Ultreya brings our separate Group Reunions together so that we are encouraged by and learn from the larger community. If you feel so led, join the secretariat as a representative of your region. Without your active participation, Cursillo stops being the effective tool for renewal and evangelism that it is and without you , we cannot use it well.

Weekends are not an end in themselves but are a vital tool in the education of the new cursillistas as well as the team members. With that in mind, we are planning to host a community weekend at Camp Easter Seal on the weekend of April 16th. This weekend will consist of worship, music, educational workshops, laughter, tears, more worship, more music, and lots more laughter. It has been many years since we have held such a weekend here in Virginia and it is long overdue. I ask you all to look at this as a chance for renewal of your personal association with Cursillo and your fellow Cursillistas as well as providing a means to support the movement. We will be calling for discussion leaders for the workshops and for applications to attend – when you receive your application (i.e., notice to look on line) or a call to serve as a leader, please be prepared to answer YES. Let us begin this year in fellowship and joy of our shared love of Christ.

Lest you think we are not going to hold a Three-Day weekend next year, in October of 2004 we will be holding the one weekend for new cursillistas for this calendar year at the 4-H Center in Front Royal. The dates are October 14-17, 2004. Look now within your community for potential leaders, people who are or might be an impact in that community and determine if they might be candidates for the October weekend. If they are, begin to prepare them by grouping with them, bringing them to Ultreyas, etc. The secretariat has approved fee increases for weekends and I will be sending you the details in February. These increases are to insure that we cover our weekend expenses which have continued to go up over the past five years without any increase in our fees.

I want you all to know that I believe very strongly in the relevance and strength of the Cursillo Method. It provides for focus in my daily life with Christ and with those with whom I come in contact. It helps me to be accountable for the actions I say I will undertake through the encouragement of my grouping brothers and sisters. Because of this methodology, I find that Christ remains the center of my life instead of the world swirling around me. In these times of serious discussion and tensions within our own denomination and this troubled world, Cursillo has and does provide the calm focus I need as I strive to live more fully in Christ. The Cursillo community has also been a source of great strength and friendship over the years. This all leads me to implore you all to look at your own lives in our Cursillo community and to reach out to one another in love and service. We all need to look to ourselves and then to our fellow cursillistas as we carry out our mission of being the major evangelical force within the Church. All of this happens through our shared efforts. Hold yourself accountable; hold each other accountable; and above all, do all in Christian love.