M INISTRIE S
Student, Celebrant, Redemption Flows Through Bishop Brewer’s Cursillo Experience BY M A RT I PI EPER
That Cursillo happened to be the first one ever held in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Brewer said. It was an all-male event, with men “of every age, probably 18 or so up until post-retirement.” “What I did not expect and thoroughly enjoyed was a wonderful sense of celebration that pervaded the whole weekend,” Brewer said. “Everything was fiesta, laughter, lots of food.” But although he enjoyed the celebratory atmosphere, what caught him off guard was what he calls the “extraordinary level of prayer support and volunteers that it took to put on a Cursillo.”
Gregory O. Brewer with Bishop William H. Folwell circa 1976
For then-seminary student Gregory O. Brewer, Cursillo began as a learning experience, just short of a duty. But God redeemed it into so much more. “I was a senior at Virginia Theological Seminary in 1976, and I was 24 years of age at the time,” The Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer said. “And I heard about Cursillo because a team from Cursillo came to the seminary and made a presentation. “I liked what I heard,” he said. “I liked the emphasis on Christian community and about being with a group of people that pray together, and the testimonies that I’d heard from them about how God had changed their lives held real interest. And my thought was, ‘I should do this because I’m interested in the renewal of the church. This is something that I should understand and experience.’”
‘Tender, Sacrificial Love’ “I actually went with no expectation of any personal change happening to me whatsoever,” he confessed. “I just thought I needed to go because Cursillo was obviously a burgeoning movement, and it was something about which I ought to be informed. So I applied, and I was accepted.” 20
Easter 2021 CFE
Brewer said every Cursillo candidate had a volunteer who watched out for his needs. Not only that, but “huge groups of people” kept showing up every now and again to pray or sing. “We were serenaded at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning,” he said. “This is way out in the country at their retreat center. And there were several hundred people who were there by 7 o’clock. That just astonished me, and it really moved me. “I was deeply touched by the love and the sacrifice of the people who served and did all sorts of things,” Brewer said. “That really changed me. And that weekend became a wonderful experience of the tender, sacrificial love of God really demonstrated through all of the people who came to love and to serve me.” And that demonstration of redeemed weakness touched his heart, he said. “I really was deeply affected by Cursillo — to my complete surprise because I didn’t anticipate anything happening to me at all. And I loved it.” cfdiocese.org
