“Alpha is here!” “What are they saying?” “I don’t know … it’s all Greek to me…”
Well, yes, actually it is Greek! “Alpha, Α” is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and as Catholic Christians we are most familiar with this letter in combination with the last letter in the same alphabet, “Omega, Ω” as in Jesus is the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
In the decades following the Second Vatican Council it has been exciting to recover the sense of true universality of the Church, including the ways in which various cultures and languages have contributed to our legacy of faith and our religious practice. Even in the celebration of Mass before the Council, do you remember which part of the Mass retained its form and sound in the original Greek? (See below … * )
Another “recovery” we have experienced during these decades is the call to and empowerment for the work of evangelization. As a young boy, I would have ventured a guess that evangelization was something other Christians did, or perhaps the priests and nuns were responsible for in our Church. As lay people, we were pretty much focused on the tremendous effort it took to guide our own personal journeys of faith, hoping that we might arrive safely at the heavenly destination for which our lives were given and redeemed.
While that is no less true today, our understanding of the nature and focus of the journey for each of us has developed and matured. The call to be witnesses to and for Christ comes not with sacred vows or the sacrament of Holy Orders but with the Waters of Baptism, the nourishment of the Eucharist, the full empowerment of the Spirit in Confirmation, and the hearing and the speaking of the Word of God in Scripture. The call to be witnesses is the core call we all share, and the call that is our journey in, with, and to Christ. The “Alpha” Team looks forward to exploring our faith with you in this unique and promising way!