De Colores: You and your team reunion

Title

Creator

Tejon, Guillermo

Language

English

Spanish

Year

1968

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

DE COLORES YOU AND YOUR TEAM REUNION (continued) • Gu il l e r mo Te j o n , O.P. 3. —Common Defects in Team Reunions. There are a number of defects frequently found in Team Reunions. They account for the fact that many team reunions fail to produce the desired results. Let us mention some cf the most common defects. a) Delay in the Formation of Team;.— This happens ouitc often. Ycu meet a new cursillista. He made the Curcillo a month ago; and he is telling everybedv about it. As a matter of fact, the Cursillo seems to be the cnlv topic of his conversation. After you have listened to everything he has to say about how wonderful the Cursillo is, ycu ask him: How is vour Team Reunion?. . . How do you find it?. . . And you notice an expression of surprise on his face. . . — Team Reunion? . . Not yet! I do not attend Team Reunions yet!.. . — When are you going to start? — Later!. .. Right now I am attending as many openings, mahanitas and clausuras as I can!. . Later! Do you think that you will do it later?. . . 676 Are you not perhaps — as your Guide Book says in the introduc tion to the meditation— among those who join the poet in saying to the Lord: “Tomorrow we shall begin”, so that tomorrow we may say the same thing over again?. . . I am sure that when you say “later” you really mean it. It is not an excuse... But, frankly, I am afraid that it might be a dream. . If, when you come out of the Cursillo House with your head full of ideas and your heart full of fire. . ., you do not find the time, the strength or the conviction to do it..., do you think that you will be able to do it later? The Guide--Book insists: If you really want to. . . now is the time!. . . Strike while the iron is hot!. . . Once it becomes cold, it will be less manageable. And it might get so hard that it will not bend anymore! . . . The first thing that a cursillista should do after his Cursillo is to join a team. In fact, if possible, it is better to do it while still inside the Cursillo House. b) Small and Large Teams.— When a team is too big there are no personal friendships and contacts among its members. The reunion becomes a sophisticated meeting, a crowd; and it is not lived by all the members. Of course, cursillistas should avoid falling into the opposite defect of forming too small a team. Strictly speaking, a two-man team can be organized; but it is not practical to do so. If one member is missing, the reunion will be automatically cancelled. The ideal number—as approved by the Third Spanish National Convivencia of Cursillo Leaders (September 1967)—is from four to six. 677 Of the husband-wife team reunion we shall speak later. c) Routine. — We already agreed that we cannot afford to allow the Team Reunion to develop into Routinism. It will become boring; and soon the members of the team will start abandoning it. To go through your practices of Piety with a hurried list of “fulfilled” and “unfulfilled”; to dismiss your Study and your Action by repeating the same generalities week after week... is not to hold a team reunion. . .; unless you speak of Mr. Machine’s Team Reunion!. .. In a team reunion there must be life, there must be action. . . Things have to happen!... d) Purely Natural Friendship. — Friendship among the members of a team is necessary. But — as I have already explained—such friendship should be not only natural, but supernatural as well. The human friendship that binds the members of the team has to be supematuralized. . .the setting up of the militant team, with its periodical reunions becomes a happy realization of true Christian friendship, organized and advanced to the spiritual order. (Leaders’ Manual, 267) Remove the supernatural element from your friendship; and before long you will have a club meeting instead of a team reunion. . . e) Social Affair. — This is what usually happens when the team reunion is based on a purely natural friendship. The Team Reunion is a well-defined Cursillo activity. It should not be part of or mixed with anything else. It is not a social affair. . . It is not a party. . . Start serving drinks and food during your team reunion. . .; and two or three weeks later you will have to find another name to describe Can’t the drinks and the food wait until the Reunion is over?... 678 f) Discussions. — The Team Reunion is not the time nor the occasion to indulge in debates on religion or any other subject, no matter how interesting they might be. Only things that have a direct bearing on the Piety, Study and Action of the group should be discussed in the Reunion. If there is anything else to discuss, let it wait until the Reunion is finished. If everybody is allowed to talk freely about anything, the Reunion will be extended beyond due limits. And those members who are not interested in the discussion, or who do not have the time to participate in it, will stop coming. . g) Unfaithfulness to the Schedule.— Not to start the Team Reunion on time or to unduly prolong it is the best way to cut short the life of a team. Its members will soon start getting disappointed..., and disappearing... The team will disintegrate...; and the reunion will die. . . h) Wrong Choice of Team. — Freedom of selection is important. A cursillista should be free to choose his team. Members of the same Cursillo, profession or parish; persons who were friends before going to the Cursillo; people with the same hobbies, etc. . . usually make up good teams. Let us remember that the team reunion is a gathering of friends. . . To force somebody into a team where he does not fit is to make him and the other members of the team feel uneasy . . Their reunion will lose the naturalness and sincerity that it must possess at all times. And it will not give the members of the team an opportunity to live the Christian friendship that is the team reunion.. . . However, it is advisable to have in each team a veteran of the Cursillo. He is there, not to control the team, but to help it with his spiritual life and experience. On occasions, and in order to help new or lukewarm cursillistas start, vivify their reunions, or carry out specific apostolic activities, a cursillista may be called upon to meet with a team, not of his choice; or to hold reunions with two or more teams. If they ever invite you to do this, and you can comply, please do 679 sc; even if, fcr lack of human friendship, difference in education or social status or for any other reason, you do not feel at home in that team. Your brothers need you; and your sacrifice will be an excellent kind cf apcstolate for them and for the Cursillo. By the way, when this happens, make sure that you do not abandon your own team. It is there —in your own team reunion— where ycu will find the spirit of dedication that you need to work with the other teams. Briefly, as a general rule, a cursillista should meet with whom he wishes; and, on special occasions—when his help is needed—, with whom he should. The “should” here takes fcr granted that he is ready to sacrifice fcr the Icve cf Gcd and the good cf others . . i) Lack of Durability.— Great care should be taken in the formation of a team. But, once it is fonned, the team is expected to last. Only when serious reasons advise it, should the members cf a team separate. Fcr instance, when the team has grown so big that it becomes necessary to divide it; when a member—after trying hard!— finds out that he is definitely out of place in that team, etc. And whenever there is a change, the change should be for the better, that is, fcr the goed of the team in general and of its members in particular. Seme cursillistas hold team reunions everv week. Thev do it with the first brother cursillistas thev meet at the Ultreva. But the1' do not have a team. . . That is better than net having team 'reunions at all. But this is not what the Cursillo wants. A team reunion is not a mere review cf the Service Sheet. A Team Reunion is a group of friends who live their Christianity together, who make Christianity together, who share their Christianity. . ., their knowledge of Christ, their apostolic dreams, their conquests!. . . And for this thev have to meet regularly. Their reunion has to de durable. . . On the human, natural level, do people change friends every week? Friendships, supernatural as well as natural, are supposed to last!... 680 j) Control of a Team. — At times it happens that a team reunion is controlled by one cf the members of the team. On account perhaps of his seniority in the Cursillo, his social status ci the fact that he is a rollista or a rector; or, as a result of a misguided zeal; or simply because cf his pride and his desire to “shine”, he takes it upon himself to preside over the Reunion, to call the shots, correct mistakes, tell his team-members what apostolic activities to choose, etc.... Make sure that this never happens in vour Team Reunion. The purpose of the Reunion is not to preach to anybody, or to correct anybody or to check on anybody... It is not the occasion for anvbody to extol himself or to find fault with others. . . The Team Reunion is a gathering of friends who work together —as equals! — for a common goal. A cursillista is expected to influence and help the other members of the team with his example, prayers, friendly advice, with his spirit of Idealism, Surrender, Charity. . .; not by bossing them, not by imposing his will on them. . . If, for practical reasons, your Reunion is led by one of the members of the team, please see to it that all of them are given the chance to do so; and that this practice does not lead to the control of the team or of the reunion by anybody.. . (to be concluded)

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