By Ana Rodriguez Soto - The Archdiocese of Miami

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO| FC

Jesuit Father Marcelino Garcia poses on the grounds of Casa Manresa, the home for Encuentros Familiares and the Ignatian Spirituality Center. Behind him is a statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and creator of the spiritual exercises named after him.

 

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO| FC

Encuentros Familiares, a retreat movement for parents with children ages 12 to 21, is marking its 40th anniversary this year.

MIAMI � Forty years ago was a frightening time for many parents: the �hippies� were in full swing; the term �generation gap� had been coined; the drug culture and �free love� were all the rage.

Add that to the culture shock experienced by newly-arriving Cuban immigrants, many of them committed Catholics, and you have the makings of a new movement: Encuentros Familiares, currently marking its 40th anniversary in the Archdiocese of Miami.

Under the guidance of a legendary Jesuit priest who died last year, Father Florentino Azcoitia, the new movement came to life in 1971, when it held its first retreat.

Encuentros Familiares is aimed at parents and their children, ages 12 to 21. It consists of two days of peer-guided talks and reflections on subjects such as communication, family relations, child-rearing, personal spirituality and the sacramentality of marriage.

The talks generally are done in Spanish, although many of those addressed to the teenagers are in English, or even the Miami dialect, �Spanglish.� But plans are being made to translate the manuals into English, and hold the first English-language retreat next year.

Father �Tino�, as he was lovingly known, �was the author. He came up with the manuals, created everything,� said Jesuit Father Marcelino Garcia, who served 25 years as president and principal of Belen Jesuit Prep in Miami before taking over as spiritual director of Encuentros Familiares in August 2010.

At first, the movement was an itinerant one, holding the retreats wherever they were offered space: at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, at a private farm, at the since-closed Assumption Academy for girls on Brickell Avenue, at St. John Vianney College Seminary, at Immaculata-La Salle High School and at Belen Jesuit Prep.

Finally, in 1984, the movement purchased five acres of land in Kendall�s �horse country,� on the corner of Miller Drive and 122nd Avenue. They built a retreat house, Casa Manresa, which serves not just the movement but other groups as well, from Emmaus and Catholic high school students to Buddhists and Protestants.

Casa Manresa shares office space with the Ignatian Spirituality Center, the site of retreats based on St. Ignatius of Loyola�s spiritual exercises, and home base for their offspring, the Christian Life Communities.

�The house is in use year-round, sometimes two retreats a week,� said Father Garcia, who is aided by another Jesuit priest, Father Pedro Gonzalez Llorente.

Encuentros are held five or six times a year, all completely run by veteran �Encuentristas,� volunteers who lead the talks, cook the food, set up and clean up. The retreats are just the beginning, as participants are urged to continue attending follow-up meetings on Wednesday evenings.

The goal is to �improve and stabilize the marriage and the formation of the children,� said Father Garcia, noting that whatever problems a family might be having, they do not disappear after a single weekend.

�That follow-up goes to forming the character of the person, of the whole family,� said Sergio Calzado, who attended an Encuentro with his wife and 15-year-old son in 1978, shortly after moving to Miami from New Jersey.

There, he said, the parish was pretty much the center of their lives. Encuentros enabled them to quickly attach themselves to the Catholic community here. The movement also provided an ever-firmer faith foundation for both them and their son.

�Our son was involved (in Encuentros) during all his years in high school and even his first year in college,� said Calzado, who expects his two grandchildren to do the same once they turn 12.

�The thousands of families that have passed through Encuentros have benefited not only in their spiritual lives but also in their social lives,� Calzado said. �They have a relationship with the Church based on the great experience they had at Encuentros.�

Of course, that is not why they come initially, he noted.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO| FC

�Many people come in order to �fix� their children. What they don�t realize is that most of the time the problem is not our children but ourselves,� Calzado said.

�The problems of the children � academic, disciplinary, developmental � create problems in the family,� said Father Garcia. �To get into the marriage, we enter through the problems of the children. And there we discover the problems of the parents.�

He pointed out that Encuentros also counts on help from seven professional psychologists, because most of the time the problems are not spiritual but psychological in nature.

Some years ago, Encuentros Familiares branched out to single parents and their children with a Sunday retreat called Encuentros Uniparentales.

Father �Tino� noticed that �30 to 40 percent of the families that were coming were broken, they had problems,� explained Father Garcia. �This is a great need. A broken marriage leaves an emotional scar that has to be healed.�

The 297th Encuentro Familiar took place at the beginning of April. Over the past 40 years, the movement has ministered to more than 10,000 couples and more than 20,000 young people. The initial, largely-Cuban participants gave way in the 1980s and �90s to Catholics from Nicaragua, but participants today represent the whole gamut of the Spanish-speaking world, according to Calzado.

�Our Hispanic people have a religiosity, even in Cuba,� he said. �God is within us regardless. (In Encuentros) they receive the message. The young people find peer groups whose members are not afraid to say they believe in God. It is a style of life that is offered, and offered to everyone.�