THE CURSILLO CROSS

The CURSILLO Cross, as we know it today, was started by four men who worked at Howmet Corporation around 1964 or 1965. It was then the Misco Division, Plant No. 2, located in Muskegon. The men had made a CURSILLO and came up with the idea of making a cross for the weekends. Then men pulled their resources together and, with the help of a local tool company, a die was constructed for the wax patterns.

There was an interim period of a few years, around the early seventies, when expansion and growth was going on at Howmet. Tooling was moved to various plants, and the wax die used for making the patterns was misplaced. Until it was finally located, the crosses were made out of aluminum in a foundry somewhere in Muskegon.

One wax pattern of the cross is injected at a time. They are inspected and eighty patterns are wax welded to wax gating bars to form clusters. When the clusters are finished (usually ten clusters at a time) they are run through a Mono-Shell process. The Mono-Shell material forms a mold all around the wax patterns. The molds are then dried and the wax is melted out. The molds are then run through a preheat furnace and baked at about 2100° F. At the same time, the metal is heated to about 2800° F. The mold is pulled out of the furnace and the metal is poured into the mold. After the mold is cooled, the shell is removed by a cleaning process. The crosses are then cut off from the gating bar. The crosses are then cleaned in another process to remove the balance of the Mono-Shell material. They are then belted all over and made ready for painting.

The crosses are then painted with various colors of Tester’s Hobby paints. The crosses are painted using flat toothpicks. The small end is dipped into the paint and then dropped into a window on the cross. The excess paint is removed and front of the cross is re-polished.

The rings are put on and the leis are crocheted and tied onto the crosses. They are then delivered to each De Colores en Cristo weekend.

From the time the crosses are injected into the wax die and go through all the processes, through to tying on the leis, there are many, many people who work on them and there are many man hours spent on each cross. The value of each cross is approximately $85.00 or more.

The cross was designed somewhat in the same fashion as the Jerusalem Cross. It has thirteen windows, which represents Jesus at the top window and his twelve apostles below. If you look straight at the cross, you can see the Jewish insignia that represents our Lord.

 The Jerusalem Cross is made of brass or bronze, and each cross is painted with the same colors. The CURSILLO Cross is made from a super alloy used for making turbine blades and vanes, that are used in jet engines. The alloy we use for the crosses, however is scrap alloy.

The crosses are painted using fifteen various colors, and not one cross is painted the same colors. The chances of finding two crosses with the same colors in the same windows is about one chance in fourteen million. The colors represent all the peoples of the world. Jesus did not stick with his own race – he reached out and touched everyone – all colors.

The leis are multi-color yarn and are crocheted to a length that, hopefully, places the cross next to your heart – so wear your cross with pride and keep Jesus close to your heart always.

De Colores,

From the Cross People