What is the Good News?

By Stephen P. White But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight - Thursday, October 17th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse - and for all of October, Synod Central - on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the ongoing second Synod on Synodality now underway and other developments in the Universal Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel. Now for the column... One of the primary goals of the ongoing Synod on Synodality is to discern the ways in which the Church's proclamation of the Gospel - the Good News - might be made more efficacious. The Instrumentum laboris (Working Document) for the current meeting of the Synod acknowledges this in its concluding exhortation: "[A]s pilgrims of hope let us continue to advance along the synodal path towards those who still await the proclamation of the Good News of salvation!" The Synod intends to advance the work of proclaiming the Gospel which has been the Church's mission since the very beginning. In the Gospel of Mark, for example, the first public words spoken by Jesus are these: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:15) At the end of the same Gospel, just before Christ's Ascension, the parting words of Jesus to His disciples begins like this: "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature." (16:15) Now, to Christian ears, this should be nothing new. When we talk about the Good News, the meaning is obvious. At least one hopes so, but these days it's hard to be so sure. If I were to ask you what the Good News is, what would you say? You might answer with something as simple as "Jesus saves." Or you might cite the Gospel of John (3:16): "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life." You might quote Pope Francis: "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." (Evangelii gaudium) Pope St. Paul VI, in Evangelii nuntiandi, described the Good News this way: "As the kernel and center of His Good News, Christ proclaims salvation, this great gift of God which is liberation from everything that oppresses man but which is above all liberation from sin and the Evil One, in the joy of knowing God and being known by Him, of seeing Him, and of being given over to Him." Pope John Paul II went so far as to say that, "Jesus himself is the 'Good News,' as he declares at the very beginning of his mission in the synagogue at Nazareth." We can, perhaps, extend things even further still. The Church doesn't just proclaim the Gospel, insofar as she is (as Lumen Gentium has it) "in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument," the Church herself becomes the depository of the Good News. Here's how Paul VI put it: The promises of the New Alliance in Jesus Christ, the teaching of the Lord and the apostles, the Word of life, the sources of grace and of God's loving kindness, the path of salvation - all these things have been entrusted to her. It is the content of the Gospel, and therefore of evangelization, that she preserves as a precious living heritage, not in order to keep it hidden but to communicate it. Notice how, for Pope Paul, the "content of the Gospel" includes the "teaching of the apostles" and the "sources of grace," presumably to include the Sacraments. The Gospel cannot be separated from, and certainly doesn't exclude, the moral and sacramental doctrines of the Church. Notice, too, that each of the aforementioned articulations of the Good News mentions, as an essential element, God's offer of salvation. Beginning with Jesus' own command to "repent and believe in the gospel," every authentic proclamation ...