Denver Newsroom, Sep 13, 2022 / 13:00 pm
The Archdiocese of Madrid has begun the diocesan phase of the canonization process for Father Sebastián Gayá, one of the main developers of the Cursillo (short course) in Christianity, an ecclesial movement that had its beginnings in Spain in the 1940s and today has spread throughout the world.
Gayá was born on the island of Mallorca in 1913. After a few years in Argentina, where his parents had emigrated, he returned to Spain in 1926 to pursue his priestly vocation and entered the seminary in Palma de Mallorca.
Considered the main person who formulated the Cursillo, Gayá was ordained in the midst of the Spanish Civil War on May 22, 1937. Within the context of Catholic Action, he launched a new method of announcing the Gospel in the 1940s.
In the preparatory phase for the Great National Youth Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela that took place in 1948, other formats of Christian spiritual revival were developed that, adapted and modified, led to the Cursillo in Christianity.