February 5, 2021

De Colores! 

We want to encourage you to join your Ultreyas this month!  You will be getting an email with the invitation to your Ultreya.    It is important to attend Ultreya for the friendship and support. Please invite a friend to your Ultreya and to your small group.  It is as easy as forwarding your Zoom invitation with your personal invitation. 

Not in a small group?  Send a note to us or to Post-Cursillo@tc-cursillo.org to ask for help.  You can set up your own small group with your friends using a free Zoom account. The grouping card you received is easy to follow.  How am I doing with Piety, Study, and Action?  What were my close moments with Jesus that I'd like to share?  What am I planning for Apostolic action in the coming week?   

We are in communication with our churches and look forward to the time when we can meet again in person.  For now, Zoom continues to be the way for us to connect.  Zoom is really fun and easy.  Here are a couple of tutorials for joining Zoom.  Please watch one of the videos and give it a try.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9isp3qPeQ0E ; or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbbYqiurgeo ;

We will be sending an invitation later this month for Southeast Metro Ultreya for those of you who don't have an Ultreya or your Ultreya isn't meeting at this time.

Peace and Goodness,

Michael and Jane Marie Rief

November 23, 2020

De Colores,

The Secretariat has made the difficult decision to postpone the February weekends 377 and 378 until June of 2021.  The website will be updated in the next few days to the corrected dates and location.  The men's weekend will be June 17-20 and the women's weekend will be June 24-27.  Pat Hofkes will continue to be the Rector and Marion Anderson will continue to be the Rectora for these sets of weekends.  It will not be necessary to re-register for team if you are already on the team.  

Please continue to pray for the teams, sponsors and candidates for weekends 377 and 378.  Please also invite your friends to Grouping and Ultreya and invite them to the weekends.  

Happy Thanksgiving,

Michael and Jane Marie Rief

October 26, 2020

De Colores!!

We hope you are well and living with Hope, Peace, and Joy today.  Thank you to all who helped with and who attended the 4th Day Encounter on Saturday morning.  We are filled with Hope, Peace and Joy because of you.  Our thanks also to Immaculate Conception Church for their hospitality.  Following is the link to the talk by Father James Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxWFgWo3Ppk&feature=youtu.be .  This is also available on our Website under the News and Events dropdown. 

We distributed bookmarks and a book titled Beautiful Hope by Matthew Kelly.  There are a limited number of books remaining, please let us know if you would like one. 

Father Paul Jarvis and Deacon Mick Humbert are the Spiritual Directors for Twin Cities Cursillo and are finishing their three-year terms.  We are so thankful for them.   

On Saturday we announced Deacon Tim and Jackie Helmeke who will replace Deacon Mick Humbert as 1/2 of the Twin Cities Cursillo spiritual director team on January 1, 2020.   Please congratulate Deacon Tim and Jackie and thank Deacon Mick for his service.  

Father Paul Jarvis, who is the other half of the Spiritual Director team is discerning who to invite as the next Priest who will act as Spiritual Director for Twin Cities Cursillo. Please pray for him and this discernment process. 

We also announced the next Assistant Lay Directors for Twin Cities Cursillo;  Bob and Ruth Schilmoeller.  They will serve for a year as Assistant Lay Directors beginning January 1, 2021 and will take over as Lay Directors on January 1, 2022 serving a two-year term.  Welcome and thank you to Bob and Ruth.  

The NACG - North American Caribbean Group is having their virtual encounter on November 20 - 21.  Here is the site to register if you are interested.  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSem6pY4jZOYP61uSgWi2l6IOYl-38YdXD8Km8It187PIQelZg/viewform      

Winter Retreat is scheduled for January 8-10 and the registration is available on the Web Site www.tc-cursillo.org. 

Hope, Peace, and Joy to each of you,

Michael and Jane Marie Rief
Lay Directors, Twin Cities Cursillo

August 18, 2020

De Colores!

Just a quick update and some links from recent events.  At the August School of Leaders, we enjoyed speaking about the National Cursillo Encounter that we attended virtually on July 24 and 25th.  We promised a link to the National Cursillo Website Resouce center.  The videos for the 2020 presentations will eventually be posted here:  https://www.natl-cursillo.org/resource-center/  You can view presentations from past events or scroll further on the page and see many helpful articles that you may read and study.  

We held the annual Cursillo Picnic on August 15th.  Mass with Father Paul Jarvis was held at 11:30 am with lunch and fellowship following.  A recording of the mass (most of it! We start the video at the point where the sound is working) can be viewed/listened to at the link from our home page.  https://www.tc-cursillo.org/   

We loved seeing those of you who could come in person.  It was a joy to see you and we appreciate all the beautiful masks and respect shown to each other in social distancing.  

Peace and Goodness, 

Michael and Jane Marie Rief, Lay Directors

June 23, 2020

De Colores! 

We are thinking about you and praying for your health and well being.  We also pray for peace in all our neighborhoods.  Let us be compassionate neighbors and share who we are as Catholics in our communities.  Listen with compassion and love to those around you and persevere in prayer.  Peace be with you.  

We invite you to sign up and attend the National Cursillo Encounter which will be held online via Zoom beginning at 5:30 pm on July 24th and continuing throughout the day on July 25th. The cost of the event is $50. See https://www.natl-cursillo.org/encounter2020/ to register.  This is a great opportunity to attend the national conference without travel expenses or needing to take a weekday off of work.

Most of the Ultreyas are continuing to meet online via Zoom.  A few of the Ultreyas are not meeting at this time.  If you are not currently part of an Ultreya or your Ultreya isn't currently meeting due to COVID-19, please plan to join Southeast Metro Ultreya the last Sunday of the month at 7pm.  Look for an email invitation.

June 5, 2020

We miss seeing you and pray you are healthy and safe.   We are praying for all of you during this difficult time of continued COVID-19 concerns and during this time of protesting and violence.  We pray for the Floyd family, for each of you, for a remedy to COVID-19, for a vaccine, for all the businesses and job losses, for our local, state, and national leaders, for our law enforcement, first responders, and National Guard, for our Health Care Workers, for our Archdiocese, for each of our churches and for peace.  May God bless and protect each of you.  May He open our hearts to the needs of those around us.  May God help us to make a friend, be a friend, and bring a friend to Christ, even in these difficult times with the courage of the Disciples that we are.  

As you may have heard, we plan to have our next set of weekends yet this year but they are being rescheduled.  Please join us in praying for the teams, for sponsors and candidates.  We are pursuing all options to provide weekends in a safe environment and likely later in August or this Fall sometime.  That necessarily means that the weekend dates will be dependent on the availability of the new location.  We will let you know more as soon as we have more information from our Cursillo Section, who are working on this matter.

Post Cursillo Section and Southeast Metro Ultra sponsored a wonderful event last Saturday with our Morning of Renewal.  We prayed a rosary for peace and for an end to COVID-19 and we enjoyed two talks about the history of Cursillo and the Charism.  Please see the links to the videos that are posted on our website.  https://tc-cursillo.org/.

Please continue to connect with other Cursillistas and invite new friends to our Zoom Ultreyas and to your groups.  Watch for emails announcing how to join the Zoom Ultreyas. 

June 2, 2020

School of Leaders and Ultreyas continue to be held via Zoom due to COVID-19 restrictions at our churches.  Watch for email invitations.   

May 9, 2020:

This COVID-19 situation continues to be the dominant aspect of virtually all conversations.  We so wish it not to overshadow our growing Cursillo community.  Let us have courage to change our approach to keep grouping and meeting, to adapt to the rules that we cannot change and to pray for wisdom to see the opportunities that God places before us.

We are excited to share some good Cursillo news.  On this past Tuesday evening we had such an encouraging turnout for School of Leaders.  Eric Volden gave a wonderful talk on Loving your Neighbor as Yourself.  Eric, thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.  

We are looking forward to the Archdiocese resuming masses on May 18th.  Meetings are not yet able to be held in person so it is still important to group and hold Ultreyas via Zoom until early June as you are able.  You can sign up for a free Zoom account at https://www.zoom.us/ or use Skype or you could alternatively use https://www.freeconferencecall.com. And how about inviting someone new to your Grouping or your Ultreyas?  Now is a great time to share Cursillo with a friend. 

Especially think of those you know whom you've not heard from; make the effort to reach out, connect, and encourage those who are isolated.  Keep up your connection until we are able to gather together in person once again.  Pray for our bishops, priests, and deacons who are separated from all of us and please continue to support your parishes financially and in prayer.  

Southeast Metro Ultreya is hosting the Spring Morning of Renewal on May 30th from 9:30 - 12:30.  It will be a Zoom meeting so you can watch or attend your favorite morning mass first, have breakfast, and join the call at 9:30.  We are expanding the number of people beyond 100 so please invite your groupies and other friends as well.  We will be sending out the Zoom conferencing information as we get closer to the event.  Cef Aguillon, our National English Coordinator, will be our witness speaker for the morning giving us two talks.  The first one is on the History of Cursillo and the Founder.  The second talk will be on the Foundational Charism of Cursillo.  

We are continuing to plan our summer weekends although there are some obstacles as you can imagine.  We are working through these obstacles with Marion Anderson, the Rectora, and Pat Hofkes, the Rector, and the Cursillo Section of Secretariat.  As of right now, we are still working to hold the men's weekend July 16-19th and the Women's weekend August 6-9.  We will be adjusting plans to better accommodate a safe environment.  Dave Hutton, our Site Coordinator is working on this. If it isn't possible to work through the details for the summer, we will move the weekends to early November.  We want you all to join us in praying for Weekends 377 and 378.  As always, these weekends will happen with God's grace and help.  There are always obstacles and we always work together with the Holy Spirit to resolve them.  And we will continue to plan.  Please don't be afraid to sign up for team and especially to bring your friends and sponsor them.  What a great time to bring younger people to our Cursillo weekends.  

If you have questions about how to sign up for team or how to sign up candidates, please contact pre-cursillo@tc-cursillo.org.

We continue to pray for a remedy to COVID-19 and look forward to the day when we will all be together again.  In the meantime, praying is our best option.  Please be helpful as we all follow the guidelines for our state, our Archdiocese and our churches.  

Michael and Jane Marie Rief, Lay Directors Twin Cities Cursillo

April 13, 2020:

De Colores and a very Happy Easter Monday to you!

Let us pray - Oh God, please give us patience and perseverance as we continue to follow the guidelines set out for us for staying at home and social distancing.  We miss each other and our hearts are aching from the distance between us.  You have made us to be a communal people.  You have made us for friendship.  Please heal the sick, please comfort the lonely, please God, let every person feel that they matter in this world.  We pray for a cure to end the COVID-19 virus.  We long to receive you in Holy Communion.  We long to see each other.  We pray for those impacted through illness, loss of business or loss of employment.  God you are our comfort and our joy.  Please comfort us through Christ Our Lord, Amen.  

We are having success with virtual Ultreyas and School of Leaders held via Zoom.  Please watch for invitations from your Ultreya Representatives and plan to attend remotely.  These remote Ultreyas are different but are working out fairly well.  We hope to get back to some sense of normalcy soon.  Ultreyas will need to be held remotely until at least May 4th per the stay at home order for the State of Minnesota.

Planning is continuing with hope and prayer for our summer weekends.  Formation begins on June 10th.  The core team is forming and we hope to have full teams ready for our summer candidates.  Please sign up to work the weekends and please sponsor.  We know there are many friends who need a closer relationship with Christ and will love to be part of our Cursillo community.

Peace and Goodness,

Mike and Jane Marie Rief, Lay Directors

April 4, 2020:

De Colores! You continue to be in our prayers as we all stay home and pray.  We are encouraged by the dedication we are seeing throughout our Cursillo community to stay connected in our small groups and Ultreyas.  Northeast Ultreya was held on this past Friday evening via Zoom.  It was fun to see each other with 27 in attendance and it worked!  Leaderschool will be held via Zoom on Tuesday evening, April 7.  Please see the email message from Stu Walker sent on April 3. 

While we cannot gather as a community in person, we can attend our church services during this most holy Easter week via computer or TV and continue to financially support our churches and charities. And there are so many more opportunities to stay connected and really have a wonderful Holy Week.

Archbishop Hebda and Bishop Cousins will be offering a retreat each day of Holy Week via https://www.archspm.org/holyweek/.  You can watch in the moment or follow up when you have time as the talks will be posted.

You may sign up for a virtual hour of prayer for the two weeks following Easter sponsored by NACG (National) Cursillo  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfBQuKinT-Iq5qzOTcIKHyFXhrtKwa0O266I7_VlDD1BNZ3pA/viewform?usp=sf_link

You can see the NACG newsletter here: https://www.natl-cursillo.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/CNN_2020.04_en.pdf for various articles and a lovely prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

God bless each and every one of you.  Please reach out if you have a question or need to talk to someone.  We are here and we know that your groupies will be there for you too.  We are all really just a phone call away.  Have a very blessed Holy Week.  God bless you and your families,

Mike and Jane Marie Rief, Lay Directors, Twin Cities Cursillo

And saving the best for last, a message from Deacon Mick Humbert, 1/2 of our Spiritual Director team. 

Death and Life

As these two realities clash and are heightened during Holy Week, along with our worldwide challenge with COVID-19, I offer a brief reflection and prayer from Richard Rohr OFM of the Center for Action and Contemplation:

We invite you to join us in prayer for all those who are suffering as a result of COVID-19, those who have already lost their lives, and those who are healthcare workers attending to the sick. You can also dedicate your contemplative practice as a prayer for the benefit of all.  

God, we ask that all who are affected by this virus be held in your loving care. In this time of uncertainty, help us to know what is ours to do. We know you did not cause this suffering but that you are with us in it and through it. Help us to recognize your presence in acts of kindness, in moments of silence, and in the beauty of the created world. Grant peace and protection to all of humanity for their well-being and for the benefit of the earth.  

Deacon Mick Humbert

March 27, 2020:

As you are aware, our churches remain closed and we are all staying home per the directive of Governor Walz.  Our Ultreyas and School of Leaders will not be able to meet in person in April.  We are planning to use Zoom, a conferencing software, for School of Leaders and will reach out to Ultreya Reps to see if they would like to try conferencing for the Ultreya meetings as well.  We will share more information about this next week.

This is a tough time.  We are struggling with too much time inside and trying to keep exercising and eating right.  We miss our Cursillo activities and miss seeing our friends and family members.  Let's focus on what we can do.  We can call each other. We can continue to support our local parishes financially.  We can help organizations like Sharing and Caring Hands, Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services and other charities that we support. We can attend mass via TV or Computer.  We are grouping using conferencing like Zoom and Skype.

Looking ahead, please do register to work the summer weekends.  We are continuing to hope and to plan. 

Our prayers for all of you and our thanks to those of you who are working in Health Care or Essential Services. 

De Colores, 

Mike and Jane Marie Rief 

March 20, 2020:

De Colores!  We hope you are well and managing through this difficult time.  Our Cursillo events continue to be suspended until our churches reopen and it is safe for us to meet again.  Please reach out and call people you know may be living alone or experiencing loneliness.  If you need someone to call you occasionally, please let us know. 

We are holding our leadership meetings like Secretariat via Zoom which is an online conferencing tool.  Using this conferencing software allows us to meet and plan for the time when we will be able to resume our activities.  

Our small groups met virtually this week.  We used Zoom and Skype.  Zoom has a free option for video conferencing as well if you want to try it. Skype allows for video conferencing as well;  there are other Apps you can use too. It is good to continue grouping in a safe way using conferencing.

Last week we promised our new 4th Dayers a video of the Post Cursillo talk that we missed having when we had to postpone their weekend reunion.   We are sharing the video with all of you and especially for the men and women of weekends 375 and 376!  Thank you to Tonya and Guy Beck for preparing this video.  God Bless each of you.

March 14, 2020:

A note from the Twin Cities Cursillo Lay Directors - Mike and Jane Marie Rief

• New 4th Dayers, Team and Sponsors for the Winter Weekends:  The Weekend Reunion that was scheduled for this evening 3/14/2020 at Mary Mother of the Church will not be held.  Instead, our Post Cursillo team is crafting a video of their talk that will be sent to the new 4th Dayers and their sponsors within the next few days or sometime this week.  Know that we are disappointed too and were so looking forward to sharing this evening with you. We will be at the 4pm mass at Mary Mother in case anyone doesn't get the message and signs will be posted as well. 
• Ultreyas:    Many of the churches are closing to all activities except for Mass.  We are suspending Ultreyas for the remainder of March.  As March comes to a close, we will re-evaluate the situation and may extend this into April pending how things look at that time.  
• Grouping:  Our small groups can and should continue.  Please be as creative as you can in including new members and reaching out to existing members who may not feel comfortable meeting in person.  We suggest texting, video conferencing via applications like Skype, or phone calls.  Your venue may need to change temporarily so we'll repeat, stay connected and be creative.
• Spring Region 6 Cursillo Meeting - The Region 6 meeting scheduled for Dodge City Kansas in April has been cancelled.