EVANGELII GAUDIUM, 10 years (part 2). Baptism is sufficient to proclaim the Gospel

by Gianni Valente
Rome (Agenzia Fides) - "We have found the Messiah". The first disciples of Christ, after encountering the gaze of Jesus, immediately went forth to proclaim their encounter with these words to those around them. In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, which is about to celebrate its tenth anniversary, Pope Francis recognizes that the joyful and amazed eagerness of the first disciples remains a permanent paradigm of the way in which the salvation promised by Christ enters the world (cf. EG, 120).

References to the "first announcement", which the traditional language of the Church defines with the Greek expression "Kerigma" (deriving from the verb meaning "to shout, to proclaim"), represent a cornerstone of the magisterial text published by Pope Francis at the beginning of his Pontificate to suggest the "paths for the Church’s journey in years to come" (EG 1). The Pontiff, in various parts of Evangelii Gaudium (and above all in the fourth section of the Third chapter, entitled «Evangelization and the deeper understanding of the kerygma») suggests its source, its own nature, the features that characterize it in an incomparable way and the fruits it can generate. The Bishop of Rome, in the wake of Tradition, follows in the footsteps of Pope Paul VI and his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, also dear to Pope Francis, where we read that "There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed" (EN 22).
The first announcement is re-proposed by Pope Francis as an indispensable fact in the dynamism of the history of salvation. This is why the announcement is not self-affirming, it is not produced by itself: it is born from an unimaginable encounter that arouses faith in Christ, pushing those who live this experience to communicate it to others.
The announcement of Christ always has something that precedes it: it is born from the testimony that Christ gives of himself, in the change that he himself brings about in his witnesses.

“Remain” in the first ad

The kerygma - Pope Francis clarifies on several occasions - is not a sort of preliminary step to take in order to go “beyond”. It is not an introductory step to be abandoned after the beginning in order to access "higher" levels of competence: "When we say that this proclamation is called "first", writes Pope Francis "this does not mean that it is at the beginning and can then be forgotten or replaced by other more important things. It is first in a qualitative sense because it is the principal proclamation, the one which we must hear again and again in different ways, the one which we must announce one way or another throughout the process of catechesis, at every level and moment" (EG 164).

On the path of the Christian faith - insists the Successor of Peter - "We must not think that in catechesis the kerygma gives way to a supposedly more “solid” formation. Nothing is more solid, profound, secure, meaningful and wisdom-filled than that initial proclamation. All Christian formation" he adds "consists of entering more deeply into the kerygma, which is reflected in and constantly illumines, the work of catechesis" (EG 165).
In every authentic apostolic act, including mass homilies and every catechism lesson - suggests Pope Francis - the heart of the Christian proclamation must resonate. In catechesis too "the first announcement or “kerygma” has a fundamental role, which needs to be the centre of all evangelizing activity and all efforts at Church renewal. (…).On the lips of the catechist the first proclamation must ring out over and over: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.”" (EG 164).

Baptism is sufficient

The first proclamation of the Gospel - Pope Francis is keen to emphasize - is not reserved for supposed and often self-proclaimed "Kerygma professionals", qualified to accomplish this task after having followed any "training" course. Baptism is sufficient, given that "All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization, and it would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients".Indeed, "anyone who has truly experienced God’s saving love does not need much time or lengthy training to go out and proclaim that love. Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus" (EG 120).

Pope Francis recognizes that all the baptized are called to "grow as evangelizers" and "we ought to let others be constantly evangelizing us. But this does not mean that we should postpone the evangelizing mission; rather, each of us should find ways to communicate Jesus wherever we are" (EG 121).
While it recognizes and reaffirms that the kerygma is an immovable and inconceivable fact of the dynamism of salvation, the Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium avoids attributing to this dynamism the connotations of a magical or "mechanical" automatism. The first announcement as such does not "produce" and does not give faith or the following of Christ, if grace does not attract the hearts of those who have heard it. The literal repetition of the announcement - Pope Francis clarified in the book-interview on the mission "Without Him we cannot do anything" - "has no effectiveness in itself and can fall into emptiness if the people to whom it is addressed do not have the opportunity to encounter and appreciate in a certain way the very tenderness of God towards them and his healing mercy".

"We do not love what does not attract us"

Evangelii Gaudium also recalls certain features which always accompany the proclamation of the Gospel. Any catechesis aimed at announcing the Gospel to people who do not know it - underlines Pope Francis - is called to " do well to attend to the “way of beauty” (via pulchritudinis), because "proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe in and to follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendour and profound joy" (EG 167). Pope Francis, quoting Saint Augustine - "we love only that which is beautiful" (EG 167). He who proclaims the Gospel is called to choose a way of proceeding "where prudence, understanding, patience and docility to the Spirit stand out", the willingness to listen, to walk step by step, and to "give time, with immense patience", because "as Blessed Pietro Fabro used to say: 'Time is God’s messenger'" (EG 171).

Furthermore, Evangelii Gaudium reminds us, the kerygma has a clear social content: at the very heart of the Gospel is life in community and engagement with others. The content of the first proclamation has an immediate moral implication centred on charity" (EG 177). An annotation that helps to free ourselves from the false dialectics that even in ecclesial environments separate and put in competition or even in contrast the proclamation of the Gospel and social interventions of human promotion, the confession of faith and the works of mercy and charity.

The kerygma and marketing

The mission of proclaiming the Gospel - the Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium reminds us on several occasions - has as its horizon precisely the ordinariness of daily life, with its commitments and its constraints. It has to do " with bringing the Gospel to the people we meet, whether they be our neighbours or complete strangers". And this can happen happen unexpectedly and "in any place: on the street, in a city square, during work, on a journey" (EG 127). This annotation, as well as the other features recalled by Pope Francis, attest that the proclamation of the Gospel is by nature incomparable to the strategies of selling products or disseminating ideas and cultural formats developed by management engineering systems. The dynamics proposed by Evangelii gaudium brings everything back to the elementary dynamic with which the announcement of the Gospel spreads in the world, "from person to person". Not as we spread ideas, but by sacramental means. A return to the sources that appears far from certain clerical "pastoral marketing" strategies which attempt to imitate the "good practices" of companies and advertising campaigns (moreover still several decades behind with respect to the times of the world). (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 4/11/2023)

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