We all know as well that it can be difficult to find our way in communicating about Christian faith with non-Catholic Christians. The principle for finding our way is to focus on what we have in common as Christians, and to let this sense of sharing increase our mutual trust as we seek to understand and appreciate each other and our common experience of Jesus.

One of the big difficulties I find in reaching a sense of having something in common lies in issues which have to do with how we see the People of God, the church, as a worldwide reality. We as Catholics, of course, possess a very high level of consciousness of being members of a universal or "catholic" experience of church. We recognize the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter. The Orthodox churches and many Protestant Christian ecclesial communities are similarly ordered internationally. The difficulty I find is in a mentality which is most accurately called "congregational."

We all have a parochial or congregational experience of church. We come to understand and appreciate our Catholic Christian faith in our local parish communities, in the experience of worship and formation in the faith. At the same time, we acknowledge that there is one Jesus Christ. He offered himself for the salvation of all of humanity. He is, indeed, the unique means by which human beings come to a state of justification (right relationship) with God. It follows, then, that a believer's union with Jesus implies communion with fellow believers, throughout the world.

Congregationalism, on the other hand, implies that every local gathering of the people of Jesus Christ is complete in itself. A congregational stress on ordering one's life in faith means that there is minimal emphasis on the challenges to be faced and the gifts to be gained when one acknowledges the obvious brokenness of the one People of God.

It is heartening to see both the Catholic Church and non-Catholic Christians organizing at an international level for worship and dialogue. Every year a joint committee of our church's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the World Council of Churches plans for the worldwide celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Jan. 18-25. To whatever extent "independent" congregations stress a connection beyond themselves, they are facing the challenge inherent in their organization.

A congregationalist way of perceiving Christianity is not altogether absent from our own experience. Parishes can close in on themselves. We as Catholics have many reminders, from our organization as dioceses with bishops to our international identity, to perceive the gifts of our congregation at the same time that we know our bond — most completely lived out when we partake of the Holy Eucharist — with the one Jesus Christ who is calling all his faithful people together. As we give witness to this consciousness, we spur on the effort toward Christian unity.