A Regional Spotlight from Cape Coral, FL

skd prayer meeting

Our parish just started our 9th Alpha. The graces that have flowed from it are immense. In preparation for Alpha and in support of Alpha, six of us prayed for two years in our home, every Thursday evening. From our monthly prayer for Alpha and our people at SKD and beyond, we began a monthly charismatic prayer group gathering in November of 2-21 in our parish hall. We have grown from 18 at that first prayer meeting to 37 at last night’s gathering.

 

Alpha Week 8 is a “Holy Spirit Saturday Retreat” and all of our Alpha guests who desire prayer, are prayed over for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. There are several opportunities for the Alpha guests to receive personal prayer in Alpha. Our Alpha Hosts and Helpers have all been formed in how to pray with our guests and how to help them pray and intercede for others. We follow the Alpha Course with a “Charism Retreat” and a Prayer Ministry Formation Retreat. Our parishioners’ charisms are entered into our ParishSoft Program and we call upon our people to operate in their gifts as we need them.

Seven of our alpha leaders attended the 2023 Alpha Conference in Fort Lauderdale last week. There were over 3000 Christians from all over the country. The majority were Catholics which I think surprised the conference organizers and all of us. There were many priests, deacons and lay leaders. We had mass with the archbishop and our pastor Fr. Ricky also attended.

Other graces flowing from Alpha: We also formed a parish Prayer Team Ministry (we have 50 members). We call forth our prayer teams at parish ministry events such as 40 hours devotion, missions, workshops, retreat days, etc. Our parish was a disaster recovery center after Hurricane Ian and our prayer teams were there to pray with people as they drove up in their cars for supplies of food and water. Nearly everyone in their car said ‘yes” when we asked, “Can we pray with you? What do you want Jesus to do for you”. We also have prayer teams after all our masses, once a month.

The Holy Spirit has given our parish leaders, a vision that everyone would have a personal relationship with Jesus and everyone would be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Praise God!

Renee Marazon is a Council Member of NSC/Pentecost Today USA. She is involved with Alpha through the Southwest Florida Parishes and serves as a coach for Catholic Alpha.