Our Response: How to Surrender Everything (Kerygma Part 5)

What does it mean to really follow Jesus? Being a serious Catholic involves much more than just following set rules or believing the dogmas of the Church. Dr. Edward Sri explains that being in relationship with Jesus is at the heart of being Catholic. Jesus is inviting each one of us to an intimate relationship with him, to follow him. How do we respond? How do we surrender everything and follow him?

Snippet from the Show
The same Jesus who walked the streets of Galilee loves you and desires a personal relationship with you.

The Four “R’s”

• Relationship
  God chose to bring you into existence so that he could be one with you.

• Rebellion
  We became separated from God through our grasping for things of this world. We rejected God and became slaves to sin.

• Reconciliation
  God does not abandon us. He seeks us and offers himself as a gift of love.

• Re-Creation
  God does not simply overlook our sins. He heals us and makes us a new creation.

• Response
  Jesus is inviting each one of us to follow him. He is inviting each one of us into a deeper relationship with him. This invitation requires us to respond.

The Church Is Essential

The Church is not just an add on to pursuing a relationship with Christ. It is absolutely essential. We need the morals, the dogmas, the sacraments of the Church as we pursue intimacy with Christ. Mary and the saints are not just “nice to have around.” Their intercession and witness play a pivotal role in our pursuit of sanctity.

What Following Jesus Requires

• It requires us to turn away (metanoia) from the life we have been living and re-orienting our life towards God.
• It requires us to surrender everything. This does not mean that we have to leave everything in our lives behind. However, it does require us to put things in the proper perspective. Jesus must be the center of everything in our lives.

Pope Benedict XVI Quote

“Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

Pope Benedict XVI Quote

Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.

What do You Seek? Encountering the Heart of the Gospel by Dr. Edward Sri

The Good News of Jesus Christ is known as the kerygma , based on the Greek word kerysso , meaning “to herald” or “to proclaim”. It is the core message of Christ that each of the Apostles, the original heralds of the Gospel, proclaimed to the world. It is Christ’s answer to his own penetrating question, “What do you seek?”

This is why the Catholic Church emphasizes the importance of what it calls the “First Proclamation”: the core Gospel of God’s love and the person and mission of Jesus Christ, which ideally we surrender ourselves to, so that a more in-depth, systematic presentation of the Faith can take deeper root in our soul.

Unfortunately, many Catholics today might know facts about Jesus and the Gospel, but they do not know him and this story of his love in a way that shapes their entire lives. How about you? In What Do You Seek?, Scripture scholar Dr. Edward Sri helps us enter more deeply into the Gospel, to ponder the mysteries of God’s love for us and his work of salvation, so that we can be transformed and join in Christ’s work of saving the world. Learn more here!

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