A Witness Talk for Perth Cursillo

When you volunteer to give a witness talk like this, you are sent some guidelines. They begin with this… ‘The prime purpose of a witness talk is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Cursillo method in the life of the speaker’. Gotcha. That’s easy. Some of the most transformational aspects of my life and faith journey can be directly attributed to the cursillo movement. But then the guidelines go on to say… ‘A witness talk is not an extraordinary event or sensation’. Well, I am sorry, but my experiences through and because of cursillo are pretty extraordinary and maybe even sensational, which is hardly surprising because we follow an extraordinary and definitely sensational God!

I made my Cursillo in Coventry, in the UK, back in 2005 – Cursillo #30. I knew nothing of what I was going along to, nothing of what awaited me there and certainly nothing of the ripple effects it would have on the rest of my life. I was already strong in my faith. I was a sold-out Jesus follower and I knew it would be me and him, against the world, forever but little did I know quite what those kind of promises would mean.

I walked into the room on the first evening, found my way to my table group, looked across the room and saw this tall, gorgeous man, in a red t-shirt, standing at another table. I was secretly gutted he wasn’t my table leader and felt determined to arrange mealtimes so I could speak to him.

The weekend progressed and the talks were amazing, the atmosphere was incredibly spirit-filled and I didn’t even mind the arts and craft activities. God was so tangibly present, all of the time, speaking, encouraging, pouring out love in every piece of palanca and every meal and every talk and I had never felt so close to God in my life, I don’t think.

And then, in the stillness of the church, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of tealights and before an enormous cross, God asked me if I would say yes to ordination. Was I prepared to become a priest if that was what God was asking of me? At the time my own priest was utterly terrifying. She was a bully and an abuser and I knew that saying yes to God meant having to go and speak with her so, even though, in the silence of that church that night I had whispered a tentative yes to God’s outrageous invitation, I left my cursillo weekend and did nothing.

A year later I found myself back at cursillo, this time staffing as a table leader. God’s invitation to the priesthood had got stronger in my mind, and my quiet whisper of yes had become a pretty hard hearted no. But still God called and still other people kept saying to me ‘when will you be a priest’ or ‘have you thought about ordination’.

In all other things I really wanted to say yes to God. I wanted to do what God wanted for me. But ordination? I just couldn’t. So I set off from home for my weekend and made a dreadful deal with God. My deal was, if 10 people on the weekend suggested I get ordained, I would do something about it. Ten people. On a weekend where there was only going to be 16 people. I was really cutting it fine.

On the first evening 6 people had already mentioned ordination and I was livid! And surely enough, as the weekend progressed, the remaining 4 added their voice to the call. But the most incredible thing was that there was a woman in my table group called Alison. Alison had a disability that meant she couldn’t speak, except in a very gentle whisper. All weekend, our arrangement was, if she wanted to contribute to group discussions she would tap my arm, I would lean in and she would whisper her words for me to share. We did this all weekend and it worked well, so when she once again tapped my arm on the last day, I leant in to hear what she wanted to offer. And she said to me ‘when you get your own church I am going to come to it’. What could I do? God is sneaky and always gets what God wants. So, I returned to that candlelit sacred space where I had first heard the call, said sorry to God for not responding, and promised I would test out this vocation. And, exactly ten years after that first whisper – in 2015 – I found myself knelt before the bishop in Durham Cathedral, committing to serve God for the rest of my days as a priest in God’s church.

And as for the red t-shirt guy? When palanca arrived for the cursillo I staffed on there was something each day with an Australian postmark on. Red t-shirt guy had moved to Australia where he had begun a new life, preferably somewhere God couldn’t reach him. Five years ago, we reconnected, fell in love and he and God invited me on an adventure to create holy chaos down-under so two years ago I left the UK, emigrated to Australia, got married and became rector here.

To say Cursillo changed my life is not an understatement, is it? Saying an unequivocal yes to God, no matter what it costs and what it takes, will always do that. And I think that Cursillo is set up to create the perfect atmosphere, the perfect climate, to make those grand promises and to mean them.

So, you see, it is possible to speak about the effectiveness of the Cursillo method in the life of the speaker, but it’s definitely not possible to do so without mentioning extraordinary and sensational events.

Thanks be to God for God’s extraordinary and sensational invitations. May God give us the grace to always say yes. Amen.