Kerygma - Back to Basics
It’s never a bad idea to go “back to basics” once in a while and re-emphasize the most elemental things. NBA players practice free throws and layups, teachers do long division by hand, and chefs come back to their grandmother’s recipes. As Catholics, we are in constant need of returning to the most important truths. In a world fighting for our attention spans, keeping the main thing the main thing can be a real challenge. An SAT word for your next trivia round describes that main thing: kerygma. A Greek word meaning “proclamation or announcement”, the kerygma has come to mean the most basic truth of our faith packaged into a thirty-second elevator pitch. You may never have encountered the Greek word, but would you know how to answer the question “What is Catholicism all about?” if you were asked it in an elevator? If someone approached you on the street and asked you what your religion was and why, how would you respond? Your answer doesn’t have to be a textbook regurgitation. Saint Peter, who denied knowing Jesus when asked a similar question, was caught off guard on Holy Thursday. But two months later on Pentecost, he proclaimed (kerygma) to the Jewish crowds: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). God’s power and his choice of Jesus as Lord overturn their choice to execute him. Decades later, his coworker Saint Paul wrote to the community at Corinth: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve” (1 Cor. 15:3-5). Paul did not invent this kerygma; he is just “delivering” (tradition) what he has received from the testimony of eyewitnesses. Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection stand at the heart of the kerygma he proclaims, and in the coming weeks I will explain in more detail why we also have Good News to share that the world needs to hear, but here is the blueprint through four questions (courtesy of The Rescue Project):
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Why is there something rather than nothing?
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Why is everything so messed up?
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What, if anything, has God done about it?
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How should I respond?