Our Mission

“A lawyer went up to Jesus and asked him which commandment was the greatest in the law. And Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.’” (Matthew 22:37-40)

We repeat this ‘Summary of the Law’ at the beginning of Mass most Sundays throughout the year as a continual reminder that at the center of the Gospel is the call to love God and love neighbor. These commandments are the womb from which Christian community is born.

We live in a world that is increasingly isolated. Young, old, married, single, working, or retired, the problem is the same. We have created islands of disconnect, and more and more we crave this sense of authentic community built on truth. The parish church is the place where this authentic community is lived day in and day out. St Thomas Aquinas said to love is “to will the good of the other,” and we learn how to do this within the communion of Christ’s Church. In loving God we learn to love one another, and in loving one another we learn to love God.

“And Jesus came and said to the disciples, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Before Jesus’ ascension into heaven he invigorates his disciples by giving them several commands. Go! Baptize! Disciple! Teach! These speak to the active nature of the Church. We are those who are sent… not only as those with a message but as those who are called to form people in the mysteries of God revealed in Christ Jesus.

We cannot love what we do not know. We cannot love Christ or be in relationship with him if we do not know him. In the blessing at Mass, the Priest says: “the peace of God which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God…” This teaches us that the mind and heart are intimately bound together. To know Christ is to love him. To love Christ is to know him. It is for this reason that we like to define “theology” simply as loving God! Theology, formation, catechesis, discipleship… all these words refer to the same thing. Growing in the knowledge and love of God without end is the cherished inheritance of every single Christian.

It is our knowledge of and love for Jesus Christ and his Church that drives us out into the world with the good news that Christ has come to give us new life.

“So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions (teachings) that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” (2 Thessalonians 2:15)

When we are baptized into Christ’s Body, we become inheritors of a great treasure. It is a treasure not just of the great doctrine and teachings of Christ but of a way of life. HIS LIFE. To be a Christian is not simply to believe but to do… to act… to become “little Christs” in the ordinariness of our daily lives. We are inheritors of the great examples of the saints, and we are aided by their prayers. We are inheritors of the patterns of prayer and worship given to us in the prayerbook and devotional manuals of the many saints and sinners who came before us. We are entrusted with something precious: that Great Tradition St Paul spoke about, which has been handed onto us through the centuries and the turmoil of the ages.

As Anglicans in the catholic tradition, our worship, preaching, teaching, and prayer life are enriched by two millennia of beauty and faithfulness to the Gospel. This gives a depth and richness to the way we live the Christian life, especially in the liturgy. What we do in the Mass is step out of the distractions of the world and the humdrum monotony of life, and we step briefly into eternity. We do so not to escape the world but to transform it.