To be Catholic is to be a man or woman of the gospel.

The matter is not very often put in just that way. For one thing, it is sometimes supposed that “gospel” is a sort of specialty of store-front sects, television evangelists, and Appalachian stump-preachers. The cinema and the stage have reinforced this picture for us all, so that when the word “gospel” arises, we often imagine someone waving a placard announcing doom, or a street-corner scene with cornets, tambourines, treadle-organ, tracts, and testifying. Furthermore, Catholics themselves may be found demurring if you hail them with a question about the gospel. “What? Gospel? No—I’m a Catholic.” Or, “I don’t know—ask the priest.”

At some removes from both that down-at-the-heel stereotype and this Catholic diffidence we find the Protestant Evangelicals. Catholics are not infrequently put off their stride by the jaunty confidence with which an evangelical Christian believer will speak of the gospel. Scripture texts pour out rapidly, linked one to the next with unnerving deftness, and various tags are much in evidence: “saved”, “born again”, and the question as to whether one has “accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as one’s personal Savior”. The note struck is so remote from anything the Catholic has ever come upon in his own milieu that the conclusion may be reached by both parties that there is no similarity at all in the two renderings of faith.

There is an irony here, since of course the Catholic Church is nothing at all if she is not evangelical, that is, of the gospel. Every mark of the Church—her antiquity, her unity, her authority, her Magisterium, her sacraments, her hierarchy, her piety, her mission—is wholly evangelical, since everything flows directly from that gospel.

To assert this, of course, is to dumbfound some hearers and to pique the curiosity of others. “We haven’t been in the habit of thinking along exactly those lines”, might be volunteered, or “Nonsense! The gospel has long since got lost in the sheer immensity of Catholicism”, might also be heard.

To come at an answer to the questions implicit in these responses, we need to ask, What is the gospel? The question itself daunts us, since libraries have been written on the topic in the last two thousand years. How is one to give any sort of manageable answer here? But then we recall that the gospel was, and is, good news for ordinary people, so it must be possible to say something to the point, even though we are all acutely conscious that this gospel, touching our mortality so simply and so intimately, opens into the infinity of God himself and his eternal counsels.

The readiest place to begin, if a Catholic asks himself, or is asked, just what the gospel is, would be with his baptism. There are, to be sure, certain churches that have driven a wedge between baptism and the moment at which one is “saved”. Baptism, in those churches, is an external detail—a matter of one’s publicly confessing Christ as Savior and Lord—which affects one’s salvation not a whit. The Catholic Church herself, of course, is aware that the Divine Mercy is such that where baptism is impossible for whatever reasons (sudden death, say), the “baptism of desire” comes into play (the person would have wished baptism, if he had known of it or if there had been time). The Church also speaks of the extreme case of the “baptism of blood”—where someone who confesses Christ but has not been baptized in water gives up his life as a martyr for the faith. His blood, in this instance, suffices for his baptism.

But the Church would stress, with the whole New Testament, that the matter of our salvation is not to be sundered from baptism. When the Lord, speaking to Nicodemus about being “born again”, says, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”, the Church takes the words at their full value. St. Peter, speaking in his First Epistle about Noah’s Ark, says, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you. . . .” In commissioning his disciples, the Lord says, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” (Mk 16:16). It is an immense topic, and vigorous controversy has often arisen in connection with it, especially since the Reformation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts the matter in this way:

From the very day of Pentecost the Church has celebrated and administered holy Baptism. Indeed St. Peter declares to the crowd astounded by his preaching: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” The apostles and their collaborators offer Baptism to anyone who believed in Jesus: Jews, the God-fearing, pagans. Always, Baptism is seen as connected with faith: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household,” St. Paul declared to his jailer in Philippi. And the narrative continues, the jailer “was baptized at once, with all his family” (1226).

If, then, any Catholic wishes to clarify for himself just what the gospel is, he may recall his own baptism. In that rite the gospel springs up before us, as it were, in all its newness. “The Christian community welcomes you with great joy”, says the celebrant to the child. “In its name I claim you for Christ our Savior by the sign of his cross.” We pray that by the mystery of Christ’s death and Resurrection, this child may be given the new life and that through baptism and confirmation he may be made Christ’s faithful follower. At the blessing of the water, we hear the priest say, “May all who are buried with Christ in the death of baptism rise also with him to newness of life.” The parents and godparents, speaking in the child’s behalf, are charged to “reject sin; profess your faith in Christ Jesus”, and to answer “I do”, when asked if they believe the Creed. Here is the gospel, as simply rendered as it can be. And, lest there be any uncertainty lingering in our minds, we hear the priest say this after the baptism: “God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has freed you from sin, given you a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and welcomed you into his holy people.”

Here is the gospel, and every Catholic has heard it proclaimed at baptism. If anyone protests, “But I was only a few days old, scarcely of an age to grasp all this”, then we can only say to him, “You mean you have never gone back and read over what happened at your baptism? Then do so at once, for it is the gospel, and never again will you need to be in any confusion as to what that gospel is.”

It might also turn out to be the case, upon my thus reading over what was said at my baptism, that I find myself flagged down, as it were. Was this said, to me, and over me, at that ceremony? But I have never paid much attention to all of that. And yet, would I wish to wave my baptism away as insignificant if I knew that today was my last day of earthly life? “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee”—some such dire words, I seem to recall, were spoken to another man who was counting on a great may things besides the state of his soul. Alas! Help, Lord! What must I do to be saved?

Very excellent words, the very words of conversion itself. Words, it may be added, that are never, never lost in the vast gap between heaven and my little cries. There is no such gap, in any case, says the Divine Mercy. Before you call, I will answer, and while you are yet speaking, I will hear. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. My anxious signal for help as I read over what was said at my baptism has been amplified and resounds all through the courts of heaven.

A fanciful scenario? Not really, if we recall that as Catholics we live every moment of our lives on the cusp between the seen and the unseen. We are people who really do suppose that not only the Mass itself but also our most halting and imperfect prayers occur at this cusp, or frontier, and that the ear of the Divine Mercy is bent closer to us than our most inaudible aspirations.

But it is in the familiar structure of the Mass itself that a Catholic not only encounters but finds himself received into the very gospel itself, day by day, year after year. There is, of course, something artificial about canvassing the Mass for points at which “the gospel” is specially articulated: the entire liturgy is a seamless gospel fabric, so to speak. It is the gospel, in public, ceremonial, ritual, explicit form. But on the other hand, because we all know that not every Catholic in our own time seems quite certain about just how he himself might phrase an answer to the question, “What is this gospel?” it is no doubt not a bad exercise for us to scrutinize the very familiar steps of the liturgy from this point of view in order to see how this “good news” (that is, gospel) is unfolded and enacted and blazoned. If we wish to compress the good news into a few handy words easy enough for anyone to remember, we can do no better than to echo St. Paul’s words to Timothy, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15). There, surely, is the nub of the good news. There is what my mortal and sinful ears need to hear. There are the tidings that the heart of man has yearned to hear, from the beginning, in his deepest aspirings.

We hear these tidings from the moment we first gather for the Eucharist. We are greeted with “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God”, echoing St. Paul’s words to the Christians in Corinth: “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor 8:9). The same apostle’s words to the Christians in Rome echo here: “But God commendeth his love towards us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). There is the gospel—all of it—in the very greeting with which the priest greets us.

And in the Penitential Rite, what do we hear? “May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.” What a loud echo we have here of our Lord’s own words to Nicodemus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have everlasting life” (Jn 3:16).

In the Kyrie we call upon the mercy of the Lord, of whom St. Paul speaks to the Christians in Ephesus this way: “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. . . . For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph 2:5ff.). Roman Catholics ought to be brimming with these tidings. They count upon this news every time they cry Kyrie!

In the Gloria we join the song that the angels sang when the gospel first appeared among us at Bethlehem, and we acclaim the Savior with the words that occur again in the Agnus Dei, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That is the gospel.

The Collects proclaim the gospel for us. Here is the Collect we hear on the Vigil of the Nativity: “God our Father, every year we rejoice as we look forward to this feast of our salvation. May we welcome Christ as our Redeemer, and meet him with confidence when he comes to be our judge.” On Christmas Day we hear this: “Lord God, we praise you for creating man, and still more for restoring him in Christ. Your Son shared our weakness: may we share his glory. . . .” And on Good Friday we hear, “Lord, by shedding his blood for us, your Son, Jesus Christ, established the paschal mystery. In your goodness, make us holy and watch over us always.” [1] The teaching opened up in these Collects is very rich. No Catholic need hesitate over just what the gospel is. He hears it in the Collects from week to week.

And he hears it in the Epistle. At the Midnight Mass of Christmas, we hear this:

God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race and taught us that what we have to do is to give up everything that does not lead to God, and all our worldly ambitions; we must be self-restrained and live good and religious lives here in this present world, while we are waiting in hope for the blessing which will come with the Appearing of the glory of our great God and saviour Christ Jesus. He sacrificed himself for us in order to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his very own (Titus 2:11-14).[2]

Or this reading, from the Mass at Dawn on Christmas: “When the kindness and love of God our saviour for mankind were revealed, it was not because he was concerned with any righteous actions we might have done ourselves; it was for no reason except his own compassion that he saved us, by means of the cleansing water of rebirth and by renewing us with the Holy Spirit which he has so generously poured over us through Jesus Christ our saviour. He did this so that we should be justified by his grace” (Titus 3:4-7).[3]

If there is any Catholic anywhere who is not sure that he has ever heard the gospel (I am thinking of all the people who say that they were Catholic until they were seventeen, and then they met Jesus, or were saved), surely we can urge such a person to listen to the living Word of God as it is read at Mass. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of God”, says St. Paul (Rom 10:17).

A particularly solemn moment in the liturgy comes, as we all know, when the Gospel is read. Here we are very close to the center of revelation, and the Church has always marked the public reading of the Gospel with great solemnity. Any Catholic whose mind has not been wandering has heard this, on the Second Sunday of Advent: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. . . . I baptise you in water for repentance, but the one who follows me is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Mt 3:2, 11; cf. Mk 1:7; Lk 8:16; Jn 1:27).[4] Or this, on Christmas Day, speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ: “He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him. But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to all who believe in the name of him who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself. The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:11-14).[5] If that is not gospel, there is no gospel.

(Again, it might be pointed out here that this is the text from which the Evangelicals draw their phraseology about “accepting Jesus as your personal Savior”. St. John speaks in this Preface to his Gospel of people “accepting” the Word who came into the world to save us. Catholics are taken aback by someone who hails them with “Have you accepted Jesus as your Savior?”, not entirely sure just what sort of transaction the interlocutor has in mind. But if we are truly Catholic, that is to say, biblical Christians, we will have no trouble replying, “Yes—most certainly I want to be numbered among those who have received him. I hope my whole life is a matter of increasingly accepting him—that is, of hearing and obeying his Word and of walking in the new life he brings. Yes, I have accepted Jesus as my personal Savior. Have you?”)

In the homily that follows immediately upon the reading of the Gospel, ideally speaking we should hear that Gospel unfolded and linked with the other scriptural readings. It is not unknown in Catholic churches for the time for the homily to be preempted by various announcements, perhaps in connection with some effort in the parish to augment the ordinary offerings of money. If this is ever the case, then of course this element in the liturgy has not carried its gospel “weight”, we might say. The congregation may, in such an instance, turn its attention then with redoubled zeal to the rest of the liturgy.

The Creed supplies us all with the very words by which our forerunners in the faith have confessed the gospel for more than fifteen centuries. “We believe in one God. . . . We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. . . . For us men and for our salvation came down from heaven . . . he was crucified . . . on the third day he rose again from the dead.” There is the very heart of the gospel, on every Catholic’s lips.

It may be thought that in the Intercessions, which follow now, we do not find the gospel spelled out in so many words. This is, of course, true, if we are looking for succinct phrases. On the other hand, in this act of intercession, any Catholic is in the gospel, so to speak. He is drawing, in every petition, on the fountain of mercy that was opened up for all the world at Calvary, when the Savior offered himself in behalf of us all. It is to that mercy, and because of the merits of that Savior, that we bring the world and the Church and each other. There is not a line of the intercessions that does not proclaim “gospel!”

In the Preparation of the Gifts, we hear the great mystery of the gospel uttered in the fewest possible words. “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” This touches on one of the most unimaginable aspects of the gospel, that mystery which some of the Eastern Fathers of the Church have spoken of as the “deification” of man. It is not a topic to be canvassed frivolously, and most of us would do well to remain silent in the presence of such language. But we do know that God has willed us to share his life and that this great gift is brought about for us by our Lord’s having shared our humanity. Here is matter for the most solemn of meditations.

Along with the Collects, the Prefaces to the Sanctus for the various seasons and feasts of the year are a great treasury of the gospel. Let us take only one, the Preface for the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross: “Father . . . you decreed that man should be saved through the wood of the cross. The tree of man’s defeat became his tree of victory; where life was lost, there life has been restored through Christ our Lord.”[6] Listen, from day to day, as the priest says these Prefaces: they are redolent of the gospel. No Catholic need ever be at a loss for words as to what is meant by the question, “What is the gospel?”

In the Sanctus, we greet the Savior, who comes to us now in the eucharistic mystery, as he came before to Jerusalem, to accomplish the work heralded in the good news, the gospel, namely, his offering of himself for our salvation.

In the Eucharistic Prayers we “rehearse” the gospel—that is, we call to mind what God has done, from the beginning, to bring us back to himself when we had fallen into sin and death. In the fullness of time he sent his only Son to be our Savior, says the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer. Here is the gospel, in words that any child can hear and remember.

In the course of the Eucharistic Prayer we are all called upon to proclaim the mystery of faith: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” There is no readier summary of the gospel than that. Who is this “Christ?” It is Jesus of Nazareth, the One we sing about in all the Christmas carols. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior. We all know those words. O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. O little town of Bethlehem . . . in thy dark street shineth, the everlasting Light. Holy Infant, so tender and mild: He is this savior, who is to die, rise from the grave, and come again. He is the One who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary.

Every Catholic knows all these words. Hence, every Catholic knows the Gospel and, if he stops to think about it, has placed all his hopes on that gospel. “For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Catholics hear this proclamation every year when St. Peter’s first sermons are read at Mass during the days following Pentecost.

Or, “Dying you destroyed our death, Rising you restored our life: Lord Jesus, come in glory.” There is the gospel, and every Catholic has it on the tip of his tongue. Death—the “wages of sin”, St. Paul calls it—was destroyed by Jesus’ death at Calvary (yes: it is an impenetrable mystery, and St. Thomas Aquinas himself would never claim to have done more than approach its outskirts, so no Catholic, or any other Christian, for that matter, need ever claim to be able to explain it). “Dying you destroyed our death.” O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The words come tumbling out faster than we can speak them. “Rising you restored our life.” We, who were “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1)—our life restored! The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light—so said Isaiah as he peered into the thick darkness of God’s redeeming purposes, saying much more than he imagined. “Lord Jesus, come in glory.” Even so, come, Lord Jesus: it is with that yearning that the whole Scripture comes to a close, in the last phrase in St. John’s Apocalypse. We celebrate Eucharist “till he comes”. It is the blessed hope of Christians. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus.

Or yet again, “When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory.” There is the whole sweep of the gospel. This bread—what bread? “My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” For the life of the world: there is the gospel. Jesus died for us. No apostle and no evangelist and no theologian can put it more exactly than that. Nor can any apostle, evangelist, or theologian explain it. How this death—this willing self-oblation—of Jesus Christ wins the forgiveness of sins and eternal life for us lies in the heart of the Father. This Cup: “this is the New Testament in my Blood.” “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn 1:9). The Precious Blood, Catholics say. Why? The Church early learned the phrase from St. Peter. “For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious Blood of Christ” (1 Pet 1:18). “You are bought with a price”, says St. Paul (1 Cor 6:20). That priceless Blood is in this Cup that we drink at Mass, Catholics believe. To be Catholic is to be a man or woman of this gospel.

In the Lord’s Prayer and in the Peace, we speak, as gospel people, to our Father in heaven and to each other. It is into these precincts of faith and peace that the gospel has brought us. But it is not only precincts: we have been brought to his very Table, his banquet.

In the Communion we reach the very center of the gospel, that mystery of which our Lord spoke in John 6 and which so scandalized so many people. How can we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God? Intellect and imagination stagger: we approach this Table by faith, which, as St. Thomas’ great eucharistic hymn reminds us, grasps realities that elude sight and understanding. Surely it is one of the central paradoxes of the gospel that the Angelic Doctor, the little child, and any of “the least of these my brethren” are all on exactly the same footing here. But is this not characteristic of the gospel? We are told to preach the gospel to “every creature”, not merely to the brilliant intellects of this world. “Whosoever” is the word that St. Peter, quoting the prophet Joel, lays down as describing those invited by the gospel (Acts 2:21). It is a very wide and generous gospel.

To be Catholic, then, is to live one’s whole life “in” the gospel. A Savior who is Christ the Lord. This is my Body given for you. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He came down from heaven for us men and for our salvation. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. These phrases ring in the ears of Catholics. The Church teaches that it is faith that grasps these words of gospel, and that it is grace that enables us to live as gospel people, that is, as Christians; that is, as Catholics.