Father Sebastián Gayá, one of the primary architects of the Cursillo (short course) in Christianity, an ecclesial movement that had its origins in Spain in the 1940s and has since spread around the globe, has started the diocesan phase of the canonization process with the Archdiocese of Madrid.
On the island of Mallorca, Gayá was born in 1913. At 1926, he returned to Spain to pursue his priestly vocation and enrolled in the Palma de Mallorca seminary after spending a few years in Argentina, where his parents had immigrated.
Gayá, who is credited with being the primary architect of the Cursillo, was ordained on May 22, 1937, right in the middle of the Spanish Civil War. In the 1940s, he introduced a novel approach of sharing the gospel within the framework of Catholic Action.
Other styles of Christian spiritual revival were created during the planning stages for the 1948 Great National Youth Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, which when tweaked and altered led to the Cursillo in Christianity.
The Vatican officially recognised the first Cursillo, which took place during the weekend of January 7–10, 1949, at the Monastery of San Honorato in Mallorca. Only five years after it was the first of the first 20, 100 Cursillos had been distributed.
Gayá, who had been sent to Madrid in 1957, suggested that numerous priests teach the Cursillo to prepare them for the pastoral care of the Spanish emigrant community at the time. This recommendation prompted the Cursillo to spread internationally.
Colombia was the first nation in Latin America to acquire this novel evangelising strategy. It had almost spread throughout the whole continent a decade later.
The Cursillo was introduced to Europe in 1960, starting in Portugal, Austria, and Italy before being introduced to Eastern Europe in 1974. In 1962, the Cursillo was introduced to the Philippines from the United States. The movement has spread to nations in Africa including Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Togo.
The World Organization of the Cursillo Movement was recognised as “a structure for the coordination, promotion, and dissemination of the experience of the Cursillos in Christianity, having the character of a private legal entity” and “the approval of the statute of the aforementioned organisation” by the Pontifical Council for the Laity in 2004.
Gayá urged everywhere he went, “Raise the flag of optimism every morning. He made “I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some” the slogan of his priesthood (1 Corinthians 9:22).
Gayá, who the pope had named an honorary prelate in 2005, passed away in Mallorca at the age of 94. His bones are interred at the San Honorato Monastery, where the first Cursillo was administered.