Church: The Church is the community that was founded when God sent the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples at Pentecost. It is in this community that we can meet the risen Christ.
Kingdom of God as a gift: God’s relationship with creation is characterized by generosity. At its heart, the relationship is not about laws and rules, but is a pure gift of generous goodness. We experience this in the abundance of creation and the gift or self-gift of Jesus of Nazareth.
Grace: describes God’s kind, merciful and absolutely generous love for us. Grace shows itself in God’s gifts of creation but particularly in the person of Jesus Christ. It is shown in the offer of a free and joyful new way of life opened up for us by Jesus Christ.
Justice: is based on the discrimination of goods in society and the equality of all its citizens. Justice is the virtue that gives each person his or her due in the distribution of goods.
Rights: Rights are those things in society to which we are entitled. Some are legal rights. Other entitlements are based on human dignity itself, such as people being entitled to food, shelter, work and security of person.
Distributive Justice: When we use the word justice, we usually mean distributive justice. Distributive Justice is the equitable and fair distribution of the goods of society.
Golden Rule: Jesus said little about issues of justice directly, but a lot indirectly. Clearly, for Jesus a major obstacle to full human life is wealth.
Social Encyclicals: The popes have written letters on many issues of social justice. We call these letters social encyclicals. They help us as a society to put the golden rule into practice, both in our economy and our social life.
Common Good: refers to all the social conditions that allow us to reach our fulfillment more fully and more easily.
Judicial Justice: Many societies use courts and a legal system to decide between the conflicts arising from abuses against justice. The goods under consideration here are much more than economic goods.
Peace: the absence of war or conflict. Bible: something that exists between people or people and God.
Violence: aggressive or unjust use of power or force to hurt others.
Covenant: originally were agreements between a ruler and the people. They gave details about the rights and obligations of both parties. A covenant is like an adoption agreement in which God agrees to love, feed, care for and protect the Chosen People. ‘’I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’’
Chosen People: When God called the Hebrews out of Egypt through Moses, God choose them. The Bible says ‘’out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, he treasured possession.’’ Chosen People were a ‘’summoned’’ people, and were to be a ‘’light to the nations.’’ They were to live the revelation of God to their ancestors for the entire world to see and hear.
The Law or Torah: The Torah is the heart of the First, or Old Testament, usually translated as ‘’law’’ but means ‘’instruction.’’ The Torah is how to live in the mutually agreed-upon relationship with God. The Ten Commandments are at the heart of the Torah; are the code of the covenant with God.
Revelation: God communicates God’s-self to human kind in stages: through creation itself, through covenants and through prophets. God’s self-revelation is complete in Jesus. This revelation is passed on to all generations through the sacred scriptures and apostolic tradition.
Prophets: were holy persons in Israel who were spokespersons for God. They could communicate God’s word through oracles, visions, judgments and symbolic actions. They were messengers of God amid the Chosen People.
Kingdom of God: is a symbol used by Jesus to speak about God and God’s actions among us. It is at work in our midst, but the present moment is too limited to reveal all of it, there’s a lot more to come.
Metaphor: is a figure of speech used in poetic language. It illustrates something about the nature of one thing by relating it to another thing. They help us to see things from a fresh perspective.
Parable: is a story that compares something we don’t know with something that we do know. A parable usually has a surprise twist that helps us see things in a new way.
New Covenant: Through Jesus, God’s original covenant with Israel became intimate; God personally enters into human culture in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. ‘’Jesus is the new covenant.’’
Incarnation: God became human and dwelt personally, in the flesh, among us in Jesus of Nazareth.
