What is a Mission Statement?  “A mission statement is a concise declaration that defines an organisation's core purpose, what it does, who it serves, and how it operates. It serves as a guiding compass for daily operations, decision-making, and organisational culture”. That culture includes our religion - Catholic Christianity.  And so the Mission Statement which we, as a Parish, have drawn up is our local missionary guide to our ultimate place of pilgrimage: Christ Himself who tells us that He is the Way of how to reach Him, He who is our Heaven itself together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Ultimately our mission statement is based on Christ’s own teaching, on His Commandment that we should love one another as He has loved us. That is why we say that we are focused on the Eucharist which is the ultimate Sacrament of love in which Jesus gives Himself totally to us each time we celebrate and receive the Eucharist.

Mission Statement as both Maintenance and Mission

The Mission statement that is ours is a reminder of that mandate we received at our baptism, to go and tell others of the Good News that Christ has vanquished death and that we have been freed to live for God and for one another in the life of resurrection.  We are reminded of that at the end of every Mass we attend, in the words of the Priest and Deacon “Go the Mass is ended”, word  which we get from the word Mission.  But we see that the mission that we are called to is not about us. St Paul in Romans 14:8 says that “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord …”.  It is never about us. It is about those we reach out to.   Jesus tells us that we are the salt of the earth.  Well, salt doesn’t exist for itself.  It exists to give savour to others’ life. Similarly when Jesus tells us that we are the light of the world.  The light doesn’t exist for itself; it exists to enlighten others on life’s journey.  And if we are a city built on a hilltop - and this parable is very apposite for us Clevedonians given our Church’s location - it is for others too. If we are a truly outward-looking Church, then we must go out to others.

Our Mission statement is a mixture of both Maintenance and Mission.  Good as maintenance is, which consists of evaluating the way we do things in order to do them better, it must not trump Mission. Mission is our purpose in life as Christians, the raison d’être of our existence all the while keeping to the traditions we have inherited. Jesus is not solely for us.  He came to save the whole world.

Pope Francis during his papacy would often remind Catholics that the fundamental work of the Church is mission. His successor has taken up the baton. In his Christmas address to members of the Roman Curia, Pope Leo, referenced the groundwork laid by his predecessor, Pope Francis, and he urged his closest advisors to be “more mission-oriented”. “By her very nature”, he said, “the Church is outward-looking, turned toward the world, missionary”, adding: “The Church exists to invite people into the good news of God's love”.

Just as our Church, that physical building, is sacrament to others in that it speaks of God being worshipped here and of His abiding presence among us, so too us pilgrims, should be seen as ambulant sacraments, the means by which others encounter Christ. And that is what a Sacrament is: an encounter with Christ. Bearing in mind that the definition of a “sacrament” is “the outward sign of inward grace”, so we should be the outward signs of that “inner” God whom we worship.

In missioning we must bear in mind that Christ never leaves us to our own devices for as He said “the Spirit of your Father will speak in you”. He is after all our Emmanuel God-with-us who promised to be with us till the end of time.

If I have written the above it is primarily for those who didn’t attend the Annual Parish Meeting.  Basically it is an elaboration of what I said or meant to say at the meeting.

I end by thanking you all for the replies you made which went towards producing the Mission Statement. Thanks to Basia, Chair of the PPC for her synthesis of the replies and to the team that produced the definitive version of the Mission Statement posted on this website.

Fr Antoine Baya, Clevedon, May 2026