Before you launch something new this Lent, before you tweak the calendar or add another activity, pause...  
Ask yourself first:  Where is the Gospel unmistakable in my ministry? Where is Jesus named clearly as Savior – not implied, not referenced, not embedded – but announced?  

A gentleman in his late sixties pulled me aside after an Alpha session and said to me, almost embarrassed: “I’ve been Catholic my whole life. Catholic school. Daily Mass. And no one has ever explained to me that God really truly loves me.” He wasn’t angry or deconstructing. He had clearly been moved and was hungry for more.

I’ve seen that look before – the look of someone who knows the mechanics of Catholic life but has never been personally confronted with the Gospel.

They know how to say the prayers.  They know the rhythm of Mass and when to stand or kneel.  

But they have never clearly heard the Gospel proclaimed in a way that asked for a response.

No one has ever said:  Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose for you.  He is alive, and he is asking for your heart.  

We assume the Gospel has landed - at least for the people who are attending Mass. We know it hasn't been fully received by everyone, but surely at least those who have scheduled sacramental prep have heard it?  We see people in our small group recognize the vocabulary and presume that they understand the deeper meaning.  

But assumption does not evangelize.

During Lent, we are invited to face this tension head on.  We put ashes on our foreheads and hear, “Remember you are dust.” We speak of repentance, fasting, conversion.

But conversion to what? Repentance toward what?  Fasting to what end?

Better habits? Stronger discipline? More serious Catholicism?

Or to Jesus – crucified, risen, living – who is actively inviting us to surrender?

The kerygma is not theological poetry; it's not a buzzword. It is the core proclamation of who Jesus Christ is, what He has done for us, and the invitation to respond to Him.

In many of our Catholic spaces, the titles of Jesus are spoken often.  But how often is the saving work of the person of Jesus announced in a way that reflects lived experiences and confronts hearts?

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.  (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 164)

This is not advanced formation. This is first proclamation. And many faithful Catholics have never been directly invited to give their lives to Jesus.

I saw this up close with a middle aged woman who had drifted for nearly twenty years. She was baptized. She had sacramental memory. She still called herself Catholic. But then her life cracked open and something in her recognized she was empty.

When she admitted she wanted to “try again,” the deacon she spoke with instinctively moved immediately to structure.  To RCIA. To a process that was familiar and comfortable (for the deacon).  

None of that was wrong. It just wasn’t first.

What changed everything was not enrollment in a program. It was someone looking her in the eye and saying:  

Jesus is not waiting for you to fix yourself.  He died and rose for you to bring you the peace you've been looking for.  Now he is inviting you to come home.  Do you want to come back?  What might be getting in your way?

No one had ever asked her that.

Within weeks she was back at Mass. Soon after, she went to confession for the first time in decades.

The sacraments had always been there. The Church had always been there. But clarity unlocked what assumption never could.

We see this again and again when leaders slow down long enough to listen.

I see the same thing when leaders walk through Discover Your Story and realize they’ve never stopped to consider how he has moved in their lives – that they've never actually articulated who Jesus is to them right now.

Or when someone walks through Unpacking Your S.T.O.R.Y.and names the moment when darkness turned to light — when Jesus stopped being an idea and became Savior – but realizes they've never spoken that moment aloud.  

Or when a parish team walks through the Discipleship Check-Intogether and discovers that while they are busy, generous, and exhausted...they can't identify ever having invited anyone to respond to Christ.

This is not about bad leadership or failure of theological formation.  It's about drift.  

We can run excellent sacramental prep or preach solid homilies and never proclaim the saving work of Jesus - never look people in the eye and ask them if they want to give their lives to him. 

We can pour ourselves into building and revamping structures and wonder why mission stalls when our structures protect what Jesus is asking us lay down.

We can spend a lot energy refining strategy.  ( I believe in strategy.  We work on strategic planning and build tools like the Parish Goal Discernment  because alignment matters.)

But strategy without clarity becomes activity without conversion.  

If the Gospel itself is not unmistakable in our preaching, sacramental prep, staff meetings, youth nights, RCIA sessions, and marriage preparation – then we are building on religious familiarity rather than saving truth.

Sometimes leaders will say, “We already do that.” And when we gently ask, “Where is the clear proclamation of who Jesus is, what He has done, and the invitation to respond?” the room grows quiet.

We have catechesis. We have sacramental preparation. We have programming. But do we proclaim?

Pope Paul VI was blunt: there is no true evangelization if the name, teaching, life, promises, kingdom, and mystery of Jesus of Nazareth are not proclaimed.

Not assumed. Proclaimed.

That makes us nervous.  Because proclamation requires risk.   Proclamation requires believing the Holy Spirit intends to act when we speak.  It requires acknowledging that if we proclaim clearly, people have to choose.  And if they choose, things change.  

Lent is mercy because it invites us to strip away religious activity and forces the question beneath the question:

Because if the kerygma has become background noise in me, it will become background noise in my ministry.

If I am vague about the saving work of Jesus in my own life, my ministry will drift toward activity.

If I am hesitant to invite others to surrender, my parish will default to information.

If I quietly assume people “already know,” I will stop proclaiming.

And assumption slowly hollows out mission.

Lent does not allow that kind of vagueness to survive.  The desert doesn't expose programs first.  It exposes hearts.  

Jesus is not asking first what we are building.  He is asking whether we have said yes to him.  Again.