THE CHURCH AS COMMUNION

66 The Church is a communion. She herself acquired a fuller awareness of that truth in the Second Vatican Council.

The Church is a people assembled by God and united by close spiritual bonds. Her structure needs a diversity of gifts and offices; and yet the distinctions within hem, though they can be not only of degree but also of essence, as is the case between the ministerial priesthood and the common priesthood of the people, by no means takes away the basic and essential equality of persons. "The chosen People of God is one: ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (Eph. 4, 5). As members, they share a common dignity from their rebirth in Christ. They have the same filial grace and the same vocation 10 perfection. They possess in common one salvation, one hope, and one undivided charity... . And if by the will of Christ some are made teachers, dispensers of mysteries, and shepherds on behalf of others, yet ail share a true equality with regard to the dignity and the activity common to ail the faithful for the building up of the Body of Christ" (LG, 32).

in the Church, Therefore, every vocation is worthy of honour and is a call to the fullness of love, that is, to holiness; every person is endowed with his own supernatural excellence, and must be given respect. Ail gifts and charisms, even though some are objectively more excellent than others (cf. 1 Cor. 12, 31; 7, -38), work together for the good of ail members by means of the :provident multiplicity of forms, which the apostolic office must discover and co-ordinate (cf. LG, 12). This holds also for ail particular churches individually; for in each one, though it be small and poor or living in dispersion, "Christ is present, and by his power the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is gathered together" (1G, 26).

The Catholic faithful ought to be solicitous for the separated Christians who do not live in full communion with the Catholic Church, by praying for them, communicating with them about Church matters, and taking the first steps toward them. First of al, however, each one according to his condition, should weigh sincerely and attentively he things in the Catholic family itself which ought to be renewed and achieved, in order that its life might bear a more faithful and clear witness to the doctrine and institutions handed down by Christ through the apostles (cf. UR, 4, 5).