MISSION AND MINISTRIES OF THE CHURCH
A. Mission
Christ founded his Church to continue his saving
mission on earth.
“The Church, endowed with the gifts of her founder,
receives the mission to proclaim and to establish among
all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God” (LG 5).
This ‘mission’ is built into her very nature as originating
from the Blessed Trinity. The mission flows from the
Church as “Sacrament of salvation,” the sign and
instrument for achieving intimate union with God (cf.
AG 5; LG 1).
Briefly then, the Church has:
• a mission mandate (cf. Mt 228:19f);
• whose origin and goal is the Blessed Trinity (cf. AG 2);
• motivated by God’s love (cf. 2 Cor 5:14); and
• with the Holy Spirit as Principal Agent (cf. R Mi 21; CCC
849-56).
The mission of the “People of God” is a central theme in
all four Gospels.
Mark presents mission as “proclaiming the Gospel to
lead others to the faith: “Clearly this man was the Son
of God” (Mk 15:39).
Matthew’s mission stresses the teaching of the
Christian community, the Church (cf. Mt 28:19-
20;16:18).
Luke emphasizes the Gospel’s transforming power to
work conversion to God’s merciful love, and liberation
from the root of all evil, sin. In John’s Gospel Jesus
sends forth his disciples on mission, just as the Father
sent him (cf. Jn 20:21).
The Church in the Philippines as a “Community in
Mission” (PCP II 102-6).
Since mission is at the center of Church’s being, the
whole Church is missionary.
This means that “we are missionaries above all because
of what we are as a Church. . . even before we become
missionaries in word or deed” (RMi 23).
We must realize that “each disciple of Christ has the
obligation of spreading the faith to the best of his
ability” (LG 17). PCP II asserts:
“All are called to mission . . . all __ without exception __
are called to evangelize” (PCP II 402).
The apostolate of the laity is a sharing in the salvific
mission of the Church. Through Baptism and
Confirmation all are appointed to this apostolate by the
Lord himself. . . . The laity have this special vocation: to
make the Church present and fruitful in those places
and circumstances where it is only through them that
she can become the salt of the earth (LG 33; cf. CL 14;
PCP II 402-11).
PCP II then develops the mission of the laity in terms of
being called to:
1) a community of families;
2) Christian presence in the world;
3) service and evangelization; and
4) social transformation (cf. PCP II 419-38).
The Church’s mission toward non-Christians is based on
two firm convictions.
 Christ is the one Savior of all, the one mediator
between God and man.
 God established the Church as “the universal
sacrament of salvation, sent on mission to the
whole world as the light of the world and the
salt of the earth” (LG, 9).
As members of a missionary Church, we are called to
confess the Faith in full adherence to the Word of God,
celebrated in the Sacraments, and lived in charity, the
principle of Christian moral existence” (CL 33).
Church of the Poor.
This mission involves a balance between the essential
inculturation of the Faith in Filipino culture and the
mission to all peoples, or the Church’s international
outreach. PCP II described at length how in the
Philippines today, the Church must be a “Church of the
Poor.”
This means a Church that:
• embraces and practices the spirit of evangelical
poverty; combines detachment from possessions with
profound trust in the Lord;
• shows special love, a love of preference, for the poor;
• does not discriminate against the poor, but vindicates
their rights;
• gives preferential attention and time to the poor;
• has Pastors and leaders who will learn to be with,
work with, and learn from, the poor;
• not only evangelizes the poor, but recognizes that the
poor will themselves become true evangelizers; and
• orients and tilts the center of gravity of the entire
community in favor of the needy (cf. PCP II 125-36).
The “Flow Chart” of the National Pastoral Plan (NPP):
• from the Call: to be Church of the Poor;
• through the Response: Renewed Integral
Evangelization;
• to the Vision: to become a Community of
Disciples.
B. Ministries in the Church
“Ministry” means “service,” and Christian ministry
refers to “serving the people of God in a stable fashion.”
This includes any public activity of a baptized disciple of
Christ, animated by the grace [charism] of the Holy
Spirit, performed on behalf of the Christian community,
and in the service of the Kingdom of God.
Ministry is characterized by:
a) doing something
b) for God’s Kingdom
c) in public,
d) on behalf of the Christian community
e) empowered by a gift of faith received in baptism, or
ordination
f) identifiable within the diversity of ministerial
activities.
Ministry in its most general sense, therefore, is not the
privilege of a selected few, but the vocation of all
baptized Christians.
The grace of God’s active presence among us, is the
source, thecontext, the judge and the goal of all Church
ministries.
Ministries in the Church today
 “charism,
 service,
 ministry,” or
 “ministries,
 offices,
 roles” (cf. CL 21).
Ordained Ministry.
There are first of all the ordained ministries that arise
from the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
These ministers receive the authority and power to
serve the Church, acting in the person of Christ, the
Head. But they are fundamentally ordered to the
service of the entire People of God (cf. CL 22).
“The sacramental ministry in the Church, then, is a
service at once collegial and personal, exercised in the
name of Christ” (cf. CCC 875-79).
The three degrees of the Sacrament of Orders:
 bishop,
 priest and
 deacon,
Infallibility.
The most important duty of the Bishop is “preaching the
Gospel” (cf. LG 25).
The Bishops are the “authentic teachers,” endowed
with the authority of Christ, teaching in communion
with the Roman Pontiff.
Through the Spirit, Christ bestowed on his Church, in
particular on the College of Bishops teaching in
communion with Peter’s successor, the Pope, the gift of
infallibility.
This gift of infallibility preserves the Church from error
in teaching what God has revealed in faith and morals
(cf. LG 12, 25; CCC 889-92).
In promising to be with the Church to the end of time,
Christ, the divine Redeemer, willed this
charism of infallibility for his Church.
This simply means that Christ, the Way, the Truth and
the Life, through his Holy Spirit, will preserve his Church
from error in its solemn, definitive teaching of the
deposit of faith (cf. LG 12, 25).
This special charism of infallibility is enjoyed by the
Roman Pontiff,in virtue of his office, when, as supreme
pastor and teacher of all the faithful, he proclaims by a
definitive act, a doctrine of faith or morals” (cf. LG 25).
Lay Apostolate.
Different not simply in degree but in essence are the
ministries of the lay faithful, founded in the Sacraments
of Baptism and Confirmation, and for a good many of
them, in the Sacrament of Matrimony (CJC, Can. 230; CL
23).
The Youth, the Single Blessed and the Married people
are the lay faithful or laity.
PCP II described the laity’s field of evangelizing activity
as:
 the vast and complex world of education,
 politics,
 society, and
 economics,
 as well as the world of culture,
 of the sciences and the arts,
 of international life,
 of the mass media.
To fulfill the mission of communicating Christ in these
vast areas, the Church needs:
 all the lay faithful, rich and poor, with the
special gifts, individual and collective, of
farmers, fishermen, workers, mass media
practitioners, educators and lawyers, civil
servants, those in the medical and nursing
services, and professionals in the various strata
of society (PCP II 434).
It is clear, then, that the laity’s apostolate cannot be
exclusively described in terms of ministry.
Church. It adds a description of their spiritualities:
contemplative and contemplatives in action (cf. PCP II
448-506).
Basic Ecclesial Communities.
Filipino Catholics need to see that the Church’s Mission
and all her Ministries are directly for the service of the
Kingdom.
Besides the primary task of evangelization through
preaching the Word, this service means establishing
communities, local Churches, and forming Basic
Ecclesial Communities which become centers for
Christian formation and missionary outreach (RMi 51).
By incarnating the Gospel in the Filipino culture, these
BECs also become means for effectively spreading
Gospel values, and for bringing out the eschatological
dimension of daily life.
Finally, dialogue with our Filipino and Asian brothers
and sisters of other religions is an
important part of the Filipino Catholic’s evangelizing
mission (PCP II 104-8,137-40).

The Religious.
“Religious Brothers and Sisters,” - those faithful who
bind themselves to Christ in a state of life consecrated
to God by the profession of the evangelical counsels of
poverty, chastity and obedience (cf. LG 44; CCC 914-33).

The Church recognizes various forms of consecrated

life:
 monastic,
 eremitic,
 religious institutes,
 secular institutes, etc.,
 and different societies of apostolic life.

PCP II offers an extended exposition of their nature,

radical discipleship, witness value, revitalizing their
specific religious charisms, their essential missionary
character with a “passion for justice,” within the local