Alpha Celebration Dinner Held at Mary Our Queen
- Christopher Potratz
- Nov 18, 2014
- 1 min read
(CHRISM NEWS/ MARIS BENTLEY) Mary Our Queen parish in Omaha hosted a celebration dinner on Monday to conclude a 10 week course providing an introduction to the basics of the Christian faith offered by the Alpha organization.
Jodi Meyer, Alpha facilitator and Mary Our Queen parishioner, said the Alpha sessions include a meal, fellowship time, video viewing, and small group discussion.
“Alpha is designed to engage participants by asking them some important questions like: ‘Why am I here? Who is Jesus?’” Meyer said.
Marilyn Roche, who attended the 10 week Alpha course, said, “As Catholics, we don’t do a lot of faith sharing. This has given me the opportunity to do that.”
John True, a member of St. Gerald’s Church who participated in Alpha, said, “I loved it. We all need Our Lord Jesus, and it is frustrating to see that need unmet in other people’s lives.”
Bill Beckman, Director of Evangelization and Catechesis for the Archdiocese of Omaha, said, “Many Catholics have been sacramentalized, but not evangelized. They haven’t come and met Jesus in the depths of their depravity.”
Father Walter Jong-a-Kiem, Associate Pastor at Mary Our Queen, said, “Our faith is not about head knowledge, but heart knowledge. As a church, we’re good at head knowledge, not so much at heart knowledge.”
Alpha program literature distributed at the dinner states, "Alpha doesn’t claim to lead people from beginning to end in faith, but only to help them get acquainted with it, to foster a personal encounter with Jesus, leaving it to other church departments to develop the newly rekindled faith.”
For more information on Alpha for Catholics:
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