The Proclamation of the Kingdom

The Proclamation of the Kingdom is the third of the Luminous Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. Unlike the more discrete events of the other rosary mysteries, this mystery encompasses the entire span of Christ's public preaching ministry, from his inauguration of the Galilean mission after the arrest of Saint John the Baptist (Mark 1:14) through the great Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the miracles of healing, the calling of the Twelve Apostles, and the journey to Jerusalem.

The mystery

Pope Saint John Paul II, in Rosarium Virginis Mariae, identifies the Proclamation of the Kingdom as a "mystery of light" because in his preaching Christ reveals the inbreaking of the kingdom of God into human history. The proclamation has three principal dimensions:

1. The call to repentance and conversion. Christ's first recorded public words in the Gospel of Saint Mark are: "Repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15). The kingdom is not announced as a future possibility but as a present reality breaking into the world; the proper response is the metanoia (the change of mind and heart) of conversion.
2. The teaching in word and sign. Christ teaches in synagogues, on hillsides, by lakeshores, in homes; he teaches with parables, with direct moral instructions (the Sermon on the Mount), and with miracles that authenticate his words. The signs are not separate from the teaching but are the teaching enacted in flesh.
3. The forgiveness of sins. Christ's preaching includes the explicit forgiveness of sins (Mark 2:5; Luke 7:48), an authority that the religious leaders rightly recognize as belonging to God alone. The mystery thus inaugurates the Catholic sacrament of confession, in which the same forgiveness is mediated through the apostolic ministry.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Christ's proclamation of the kingdom is "the manifestation of God's saving plan, the unveiling of the mystery hidden from before the foundation of the world."¹

Meditation on repentance and conversion

The traditional spiritual fruit of the Proclamation of the Kingdom is repentance and conversion. The mystery places before the believer the same call that Christ delivered in Galilee: not a one-time decision but the daily orientation of the heart toward God. The Catholic life is, in this sense, a continual response to the proclamation of the kingdom, renewed at every Mass, every confession, every act of charity.

The mystery is closely connected to the season of Lent, the annual liturgical period in which the Church corporately responds to the call to repentance and conversion through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Praying the Proclamation of the Kingdom

To pray the third Luminous Mystery: announce "The third Luminous Mystery, the Proclamation of the Kingdom," pray an Our Father, ten Hail Marys while meditating on Christ's preaching of the Gospel and his call to conversion, and conclude with a Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer.

For the previous mystery, see the Wedding at Cana. For the next mystery, see the Transfiguration.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 541 to 560, on the proclamation of the kingdom of God. ↩