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History of the Walk to Emmaus Movement
What is this Movement all about?
The Emmaus movement grew out of the Catholic Cursillo movement, a program to reinvigorate the spiritual lives of leaders of the church. It can be thought of as an anti-burnout program. Patterning itself on the Cursillo model, Emmaus became its Protestant counterpart.
There are three stalwart symbols of Emmaus: the rainbow, the rooster, and the song "De Colores". The rainbow, of course, represents God's biblical covenant promise with His people. The rooster and the song come from an old story. One Spring a group of Mexicans was returning home from a Cursillo retreat. The antiquated bus in which they were riding broke down in the middle of farm country. While waiting for help to arrive the passengers noticed the brightly colored feathers of roosters in the barnyard bordering the road. Inspired, they came up with a 100 verse song which was later titled "De Colores". "De Colores" means "of" or "about" colors, both of roosters and rainbows. The song has become the Emmaus theme song; the multi-colored rooster a symbol of the rainbow (a symbol of a symbol). Of course we don't sing all 100 verses, but we do sing the first verse often and verses two and three on occasion. There are also times on walks that there are attempts to sing one or two verses in Spanish. That, as you can imagine, is a rare treat for the ears!
Here are the words to the first verse of "De Colores":
De Colores! De Colores!
The fields love to dress in all during the Spring time!
De Colores! De Colores!
The birds have their clothing that comes every season!
De Colores! De Colores!
The rainbow is vested across the blue sky!
De Colores and so must all love be
of every bright color to make my heart cry!
De Colores and so must all love be
of every bright color to make my heart cry! (Ole!).
A more extensive history of the Emmaus movement is available
from The Upper Room. Click on the link below to go there.
History of Emmaus from Upper Room
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This page was last updated 11/05/2007.
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