Alpha is at the school gate this season

Maggie Moodley, Alpha co-ordinator at St Mary’s, told Gomes the course changed lives she can name as stories, not as a tally cooked up after the fact. “We had one lady who lost her faith after losing two children and reconnected with God through Alpha. Now she has peace and can smile again,” she said. Another young mother, Moodley said, “found her whole life changed after doing Alpha.” “She has now done the RCIA course and both her and her child have been baptised. One of our alpha leaders was the godmother to her child.” Those sentences are the Catholic Leader’s of 15 July.

Moodley said the rooms had shifted. “We started off with mostly parishioners and that has changed over our seasons to include lapsed Catholics, agnostics and people of other faiths.” “It changes hearts and renews the gifts of the Holy Spirit in each of us. It brings the focus back to Jesus and to going out and making disciples.” “We are only instruments in God’s hands, and the foundation of our Alpha is prayer.” Nejude Haddad, also an Alpha co-ordinator at St Mary’s, said the course had been “a wonderful tool personally too, to be able to go and make disciples and spread the good news.” “It creates a really deep desire for God and a desire for more. I find that when people have done Alpha, they are always asking ‘what’s next, where do I go from here?’” Many go into ministries, including as RCIA and Alpha co-ordinators. “When you see the change that it creates in people and in communities and what it’s done for the St Mary’s community, it would be a disservice not to keep doing it,” Haddad said.

Vanessa Comninos is the Archdiocese of Brisbane’s project officer for adult formation. “We are currently experiencing a remarkable moment in our parishes, with people simply turning up and asking to become Catholic,” she told Gomes. “God is meeting people in their need.” She pointed at growth in RCIA numbers. The archdiocese’s own Alpha page, still live, calls the course a ten-week journey and “a highly effective complementary resource for the enquiry stage of the RCIA.” Complementary. Not a replacement. That’s the Catholic sentence in Brisbane in 2026.

The same page put dates on the Gold Coast journey that began in February at St Mary’s. Local Alpha from 19 April. Combined retreat Saturday 30 May. On 29 July the Adult Formation team hosted an Alpha evening in the Hanly Room at St Stephen’s Cathedral from 6:30 p.m. — dinner, a video, small-group discussion. 31 July’s update left the Coomera numbers standing: six leaders to 18, one session to two, about 40 people.

Alpha Australia’s 2025 impact report, looking into this year, printed a school-system plan that is still a plan, not a finished count. “Plans are now underway for implementation across Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools, encompassing over 125,000 students in 250 schools, beginning with Alpha for teachers in Term 2 2026, followed by student implementation in Term 3 and future exploration of family engagement.” Term 3 is the present Victorian term. The report does not publish a 2 September headcount of classrooms that have begun. So the plan stays a plan. What the report does count for 2025 in a Catholic context: 792 Alphas, 15,840 participants.

Hong Kong is this season’s dated start. The Sunday Examiner, 14 August 2026, filed the cathedral’s English adult Alpha: March to May, co-organised by Diocesan English Youth and the cathedral, more than 100 registrations, weekly attendance of 60 to 70, ages 16 to over 70, people from the Philippines, Indonesia, Europe, the United States, and local residents. Each session: a shared meal, an icebreaker, a video, small groups by age. About 20 volunteers trained by Alpha Hong Kong. Sister Mary Rani Arokiyasamy of the Institute of Foreign Missions brought youth Alpha to the cathedral in 2025 with parish priest Father Dominic Chan Chi-ming. Eloisa Damulo, chair of DEY, said: “Everybody needs community.” Emilio Oelsinger, 29, told the Examiner that picking up a flyer outside the cathedral started him. “Exploring faith alongside peers in a supportive community was crucial to growing closer to God.” He signed up to volunteer for the next adults’ course. Sister Rani’s team were urging teenagers toward the teen Alpha “launching at the end of August.” 23 August was that launch.

What is Alpha, if you have never sat at one of those tables? Interactive sessions, typically weekly, for about ten weeks. Food. A talk, usually a video. Discussion. Everyone is welcome. The Gospel here is not a sermon. Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, former preacher to the papal household, is quoted by Alpha Australia this way: “Alpha is a wonderful method to introduce people to a first knowledge of faith in a way that is very appropriate to modern man. One of the advantages of Alpha is that it focuses on the Kerygma… faith in itself blossoms by hearing the Kerygma.” Kerygma is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. RCIA remains the Catholic door into the sacraments. Comninos’s page says Alpha can sit at the enquiry stage. That is the order.

Damulo’s advice to other parishes, printed 14 August, was short. “Don’t be afraid to try… it really is worth it. It is about relying on God and the Holy Spirit.” Moodley, from Coomera: Alpha is “the perfect tool to follow Jesus’s teachings and to make disciples.” Those are their sentences. Open to every reader. You can walk up without a membership card. The Gold Coast parish prints an email, alpha@stmaryscoomera.net.au. The cathedral prints a form. Named people on the record: Maggie Moodley, Nejude Haddad, Vanessa Comninos, Sister Mary Rani Arokiyasamy, Father Dominic Chan Chi-ming, Eloisa Damulo, Emilio Oelsinger. Named houses: St Mary’s Upper Coomera, St Stephen’s Cathedral Brisbane, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Hong Kong.

Upper Coomera: six leaders to 18, about 40 people, Catholic Leader 15 July 2026. Hong Kong teen Alpha 23 August to 25 October, 16 Caine Road. Complementary to RCIA. Kerygma first. The gate is open.

NKJV: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19)