Sunday, September 12th 2021 | By Rev. Michael P. Hanifin
In the Gospel this weekend, Jesus invites us to become great in the sight of God by doing His will modeled after Jesus’ example, surrendering our lives in loving service to him and others. We are invited to know Jesus in an intimate and personal way. Jesus instructed his disciples “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me.” In other words, to be Jesus’ disciple we must be like children who are completely dependent on their parents.
The purpose of the Church is to evangelize the world. As Jesus instructed his disciples, “Go and make Disciples of all nations” (Mt. 28:19). Many of us are nervous about how to evangelize as Jesus invited us. One easy way to evangelize is to invite yourself, a family member, or friend to Alpha-Catholic Context. I would like to refer to Alpha as “Evangelization for Dummies” because it is so easy. We invite people to dinner and a movie, and the invitation is always to “come and see.” The invitation makes explicit that there is no commitment beyond the first week, and that the participant can take the course one week at a time. You can be assured that if the participant decides not to come back, no one will contact them. Alpha is structured so that each process ends with a celebration event to which those who completed the course may invite friends and family members to come and see what each participant experienced.
Typically, Alpha-Catholic Context courses are initially made up of active parishioners. This is of benefit to the parish, as most of these participants will experience renewal and even interior conversions and resolve to make a greater commitment to the Catholic Christian faith. They may very much feel the need to invite others to experience what they themselves had experienced. Creating an invitational culture has always been what Christianity is about and inviting people to “come and see” for themselves is modeled after Jesus Christ, who initially invited his disciples to come and see when they made their first inquiry about him.
Starting Wednesday, September 22nd at 6:30 PM we will start another Alpha-Catholic Context course. All are invited to learn the basics of our Christian faith that includes shared meal, viewing a movie and followed by a brief discussion among those present. It is free and the introductory “Come and See” event, does include a dinner and registration is mandatory so that we can have enough food for all attendees. For more information and to register please go online to our parish website @ https://www.stjccm.org/alpha