Leicester Cursillo weekends normally run from a Thursday or Friday evening through to Sunday afternoon. They are led by a team of lay people and clergy, who have all experienced a Cursillo weekend themselves.
During the weekend the participants (or ‘Cursillistas’) will live, worship and learn together. Talks will be given by the leaders on some of the main areas of Christian life and faith – such as grace, faith and action.
These areas will also be discussed in group workshops and reinforced with prayer and quiet reflection.
Cursillo weekends are a great way to meet people who have a common desire to deepen their relationship with God. They offer a chance to break away from the routine of service-based worship and bring a strengthening of Christian commitment within a community.
They also provide an opportunity to discover our personal gifts and use them for Christian service and leadership, so that we can build up the witness of the Church in the world that both may be renewed and transformed.
The programme begins at teatime on Thursday evening. There is time to settle in, and to meet others who will be sharing the weekend with you – some of whom will be there as fellow pilgrims (participants), while others are members of the team that will be serving you. All members of the team have previously been pilgrims themselves and will have been working and praying together for some time in preparation for your weekend.
Participants will soon discover that the age range of the people there is wide and come from a broad variety of backgrounds which all helps to enrich the experience. Following the Thursday evening meal (the food is excellent, and you won’t have to do any cooking or washing up all weekend!) the leader for the weekend will introduce the team and explain more about what will be happening. Two meditations follow, and after our short evening service there will begin a period of silence which will last overnight.
Friday and Saturday begin with a Eucharist and close with a service in the chapel. The weekend reaches its climax in the celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday afternoon. After this, participants and staff alike make their way back home.
Over the weekend participants will hear five meditations and fifteen talks (yes, it sounds a lot but it’s amazing how they fly by!). The meditations and five of the talks are given by the clergy, and the other ten talks are given by lay members of the team.
Participants work together in small table groups and there is an opportunity to respond to the talks in a variety of ways (don’t worry – you will not be put on the spot!). Each table is assigned two leaders, who will help to facilitate discussion.
The team is there for participants throughout the weekend, and if anyone would value a chance to talk or pray with the clergy, they will make time available for them. Over the course of the weekend all will worship and pray together, they will learn together, they will share meals together, they will have a lot of fun together – and they may even share a few tears together. The programme is busy, and Cursillo is about enabling the individual to develop a new understanding of their own spirituality – but there are opportunities for quiet individual reflection during the weekend. In other words, Cursillo is a multiple experience, which is gone through individually and together in community.
The weekends are soaked in prayer; and individual participants will be upheld in prayer from the moment an application is received.
Leicester Cursillo weekends are held at Launde Abbey – the Diocese of Leicester’s retreat and conference centre on the edge of county.
Launde Abbey lies 14 miles east of Leicester and 30 miles west of Peterborough. Set in beautiful parkland of 450 acres on the borders of Leicestershire and Rutland, the Abbey has 39 en-suite bedrooms which can accommodate up to 78 people; full conference facilities; comprehensive dining facilities; extensive cultivated gardens and a wonderful twelfth century Chapel (part of the original Augustinian priory).
Visit the Launde Abbey website