Have you ever encountered a Catholic word that you did not know? We might hear other Catholics use words unknown to us and it can be embarrassing to admit that we don’t know what the word means.

We should never be embarrassed to ask what words mean. Words are important, and even more important is our capacity to understand each other when we communicate. Many of our Catholic words have deep, rich, meaning, that go beyond a dictionary definition.  

One word, rooted in ancient Greeksuch word is kerygma. This word comes up often in evangelization, but what exactly does this word mean?  St John Paul II, in Catechesi Tradendae offers this basic description of the kerygma: “The initial, ardent proclamation, by which a person is one day overwhelmed and brought to the decision to entrust himself to Jesus Christ by faith.”  

Grace Lee, a long-time instructor at Corpus Christi College, and missionary disciple in the Chinese Ministry in the Archdiocese of Vancouver offers more on the kerygma, which is featured in a book she wrote called, Be Holy. Check it out below. 

The Kerygma

There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12) 

Question: Who is our Saviour? 
Answer: Jesus Christ.  

Question: Why do we need a saviour?
Answer: Because we have sinned. 

Question: What are the consequences of sin?
Answer: Separation from God. 

Question: How did Jesus save？
Answer: Through the Paschal Mystery (the Passion, Death and Resurrection) of Jesus Christ, He “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). Death is “the wages of sin” (Romans 6:23). Without “the sting of death [which] is sin”(Corinthians 15:56), “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2). 

Before we sinned, Adam and Eve were constituted in an original “state of holiness and justice.” Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 375-376

This grace of original holiness was “to share in … divine life". By the radiance of this grace all dimensions of man's life were confirmed. As long as he remained in the divine intimacy, man would not have to suffer or die. The inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman, and finally the harmony between the first couple and all creation, comprised the state called “original justice”.

Man's first sin

Genesis

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;  but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (2:15-17). “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate”. (3:4-6). 

CCC

Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of.  All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness (CCC 397). In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Created in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully “divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God”, but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God” (CCC 398).

The tragic consequences of this first disobedience

As a result, the entire harmony of original justice, foreseen for man in God's plan, was lost by the sin of our first parents (CCC 379). Adam and Eve immediately lost the grace of original holiness (CCC 399).

Genesis

To the woman he [God] said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”  And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face  you shall eat bread until you return to the ground,  for out of it you were taken; you are dust,  and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:16-19).

CCC

Because of this first disobedience, the harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is now subject “to its bondage to decay”. Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will “return to the ground”, for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history (CCC 400).

Concupiscence

“When man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn towards what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his source, man has also upset the relationship which should link him to his last end, and at the same time he has broken the right order that should reign within himself as well as between himself and other men and all creatures” (CCC 401). 

Immediately after the original sin, God promised our salvation (The Protoevangelium)

The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, … I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:14-15).                                                                              

The gulf between God and humankind can never be bridged by human beings

“For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; [we] are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:22-24). We are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26). 

The Gospel (Good News)

Through the Paschal Mystery (the Passion, Death and Resurrection) of Jesus Christ, death is abolished and we are brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:9-10). 

“We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (Romans 6:9). “Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds [we] have been healed” (2 Peter 2:24). “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7) “Now that [we] have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage [we] get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:22-23). This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3).

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. I have said these things to you while I am still with you.  But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:23-6).

We are no longer enslaved to sins

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Romans 8:1-9).