To be a Catechist in the
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd requires a commitment to many hours of
preparation, materials making and then working with children. May people ask
why, when many “programs” for children in the church utilise volunteers and
follow written and prepared programs with activities and worksheets prescribed
for each week of the liturgical cycle, why do we ask for so much preparation?
There can be many ways
to answer that question and I do not think this article will exhaust them all.
The Catechesis of the Good
Shepherd uses an approach very different to that used in our schools at this
time. It is not so much an opportunity to educate our children in the faith,
but rather introduce them to the person of God in a unique relationship. To act
as a matchmaker between God and the child and allow the children to fall in
love with Jesus the Good Shepherd. Many people have grown up being filed with
information and tested to check on their recall. All of that is useful and
necessary. But consider when we have fallen in love, did it happen through
knowledge or was it through relationship? Adults who become Catechists
sometimes find they learn about their faith as if for the first time, seeing
through the eyes of children the beauty of our traditions and the words of
scripture in a new way Through the
formation experience we allow adults to discover for themselves the richest
treasures God has to offer and we also help them to learn to step back and
allow their children to make the same connections for themselves.
There is no lesson so
well remembered or treasured than the one we discover for ourselves. Can you
recall everything you have ever learned? What are the things you remember the
best? Could it be those things where you made the connections, the discoveries
for yourself? Like the person who discovered the treasure in the field and sold
all they had to have it or the merchant who searched all his life for the most
precious pearl, we want your relationship with Jesus to be a precious gift that
you personally invested in.
During the formation,
the participants will learn about an approach to learning discovered by Maria
Montessori and also some Sacred History Theology. Interspersed with this some individual
presentations will be given (the same as those given to the children)
demonstrating the way we allow the children to continue to meditate on the
small lessons of scripture, liturgy and practical life. There is time for
prayer, sharing and also materials making. All of these will help to form the catechist,
just as the time in the atrium for children helps to build the child in their
personal relationship with God.
When we work with
children in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, we do not follow a program. We
do not have a curriculum that must be covered in a set amount of time. Some children
will never work with or be given all of the presentations. We observe and
follow the needs of each individual child, offering to them as gift various
presentations as they grow in their understanding and relationship of God and
as they grow as people in our community. As their abilities increase, they gain
new skills which we provide opportunities for them to master, to help them do
it by themselves. As one may imagine, it can be very difficult for some people
to let go and let God be the teacher, with no measurable outcome. Sometimes we
are blessed with glimpses of the work of the Holy Spirit in the response of the
children, through their personal prayer and artwork. For the most part we are
useless servants of God and the child and perhaps one day we may see the fruits
of our labour.
The Catechesis of the Good
Shepherd is an approach to the religious formation of children.
It is rooted in the Bible,
the Liturgy of the Church and the educational principles of Maria Montessori.
Children gather in an atrium,
a room prepared for them, which contains simple yet beautiful materials they can
use to help answer interior questions like:
“God who are you? How do you love us?”
About the Environment
“Like the environment of the Church, it is a place where the child can listen to the proclamation of the Good News, meditate on it and begin to live it according to the child’s own rhythm.
Different from the environment of the Church, the atrium is not only a place for announcement and celebration: it is also a place for work.
It is a particular environment in which work easily becomes meditation and prayer.”
Gianna Gobbi, 2000. (Listening to God with Children)
How can the atrium nourish a child’s faith
development?
The Catechesis of the Good
Shepherd is not so much a curriculum as an environment. Through the use of the materials
in the environment the children are introduced to God.
The purpose of the Catechesis
isn’t to teach children about God through
information about scripture or liturgy. Rather the focus is on introducing children to an experience of God
through scripture and liturgy.
The atrium is a special
place for children. It is a place of prayer and meditation, not a classroom for
instruction. It is holy ground where Christ is encountered through word and action.
It is a place of worship and community—religious life.
Every work in the atrium is either a passage to
prayer or prayer itself.
The Materials
The materials used in the
atrium have been designed to meet the vital needs of each age group of the children.
This is based on their capabilities according to the research of Maria Montessori.
They are in a size that
will comfortably fit the child and sensorially appealing; made of natural materials
(such as wood, metal and clay) and as much as possible are hand made by the catechists
themselves.
The room is set out in
a way that conveys the centrality of the parable for each age group; the Good Shepherd
for ages 3-6 and the True Vine for ages 6-12. Arranged around these are the Eucharist,
the sacraments, scripture and geography works.
The 3-6 Child
The 3-6 year old child
is particularly capable of receiving and enjoying the most essential elements of
our faith: the announcement of God’s love in the person of the Good Shepherd who
died and is risen.
Materials they work with
help make the mystery of God concrete. For example, a geography work of a 3D relief
map of the land of Israel, establishes Jesus as a real person in time and space.
Their sense of wonder and
delight are nurtured through selected parables on the mystery of God’s kingdom:
they may wonder at how something as small as a mustard seed can grow into a large
tree.
Their desire for knowing
the names of things and ordering things in their environment is met in work such
as the altar where they learn the names and lay out items as they are arranged at
Mass.
The 6-12 Child
The parable of the True
Vine is the central meditation for children in this age group.
The work here responds
to the need of the older child to know their place in their relationship with God,
family and the wider community.
A range of moral parables
provides the opportunity for meditation on God’s love and enduring forgiveness.
Their love for detail is
ministered to through breaking open different parts of the Mass and exploring it,
deepening their knowledge and love of the Eucharist.
Timelines focusing on salvation
history from Creation to Redemption to Parousia nurture their vivid imagination
and their fascination with time; the past and the future. This leads to the wonder
of all the many gifts we have received from God, culminating in God’s gift of his
own life through Jesus.
There is an emphasis on
our response to God’s amazing generosity and the responsibility that comes with
receiving these gifts.
2019 has begun in the
atrium here. We open our doors to some familiar faces and some new faces on
Thursday. The Catechists have been preparing the space readying the materials,
buying new supplies, remaking and repairing some of the works.
We look forward with
anticipation to a year of sharing the love of the Good Shepherd with the
children and learning from them some new insights into the secrets God has hidden
for us to discover for ourselves.
The atrium is a sacred
space made especially for children to discover and grow in their relationship
with Jesus. Our role as Catechists is to guide them and prepare opportunities
for them to find Jesus. We allow the Holy Spirit to work in the materials and
environment to awaken their hearts to God. So, our role is not as a teacher but
as a servant, a matchmaker between the child and God. Like a servant we look
for openings to invite the children into a deeper relationship. We observe
their interests and abilities and match the work to them.
Some children arrive
with a plan of what they will do, others need some time to adjust to a quieter,
slower environment and may need help to make initial choices. Some children
need to move, we look for work that involves movement. Some like the challenge
of a puzzle, we have works that meet that need. Still others are opening up to
the joys of writing and reading. All of the materials in the atrium have been
chosen by children to meet their deepest needs and to encourage them in their
life of prayer.
In the first few weeks
after a long break, the children often need some structure to reacquaint them
to the sacred space. Older children decide on what they think will be appropriate
rules for their community to work peacefully together. If the atrium has been
changed, we give a short tour so they can easily find the materials they know.
New children are welcomed, and more experienced children help them to find what
they need.
The rhythm of the
atrium generally begins with work time, during which they may receive a
presentation and concludes with a prayer time where they can respond to what
they have experienced that day. Presentations are dictated mainly by the
interest of the children and by the liturgical cycle. Not every child will
receive a presentation every week, or the same presentations as the other children.
Whole group presentations are rare, with most given individually or to small groups.
Children keep a record
of any art or prayer responses in a prayer journal or folder, which at some
later time they take home. Some children create a lot, others none or hardly
any. We are privileged to bear witness to their growth in prayer and
relationship with Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
In the atrium we introduce
the children to the liturgical year firstly by looking at the colours of the
liturgical seasons. Children in level 1 are introduced to the colours for
Preparation (purple), getting ready for a feast. The feasts of Christmas and
Easter and their seasons are white. Ordinary time (green) is introduced as the
growing time, a time to allow the “food of the feast” to nurture our growing
relationship with God. The other colour (red) is for the Holy Spirit and the feast
of Pentecost.
Children learn the liturgical cycle firstly by observing the colours used during the celebration of Mass.
As children progress
through the atrium we look at a circular liturgical calendar. This highlights
the cyclical nature of the liturgical year. The calendar has a small prism for
each Sunday of the year (ours also includes an extra prism to represent
Christmas Day as that does not always fall on a Sunday). Essentially this work
is a puzzle that the children pull apart and reconstruct. However, this
provides time for the children to reflect and notice different elements of our
liturgical cycle. Little facts such as Easter is longer than Lent. Ordinary Time
is very long, why would that be?
The liturgical calendar in the atrium
There are also things
to research further such as Easter is not always on the same date so how do we
know when it will happen? The numbers of the Sundays in Ordinary Time don’t
match the number of prisms, why would that be? When we attend daily Mass the
priest sometimes wears other colours, why?
The Liturgical Calendar acts a a catalyst to discovering more about the liturgical cycle and life in the church.
The calendar is just a
starting point for discoveries about life in the church.
Many adults make
observations too such as the calendar does not progress in a clockwise
direction. Why would we have it going counter-clockwise? Could it be that God’s
time is different to our time?
As we approach the
three main feasts of our church year, Easter, Christmas and Pentecost, we celebrate
with the children. These celebrations are not just parties with gifts and food.
They are solemn celebrations looking at what the event is. With the children we
enter into the special time that we are celebrating. At Easter, this may take the
form of a re-enactment of the Last Supper and/or a Liturgy of Light
celebration. Prior to that, during Lent, we bury the “Alleluia” and save the
word for the special day when we proclaim the resurrection of Jesus. During
Pentecost we meditate on the gift of the Holy Spirit and consider what those
gifts mean for us in our lives and how we can call on those gifts to help us
build God’s kingdom. During the Christmas Celebration we often have a lead up
during advent culminating in recalling Jesus being incarnate and also longing
for him to come again. Due to our long Summer break, this often happens a few
weeks prior to Christmas Day. Our CGS friends living in the Northern Hemisphere
will also celebrate the feast of Epiphany, recognising the gift given for all
people.
Some ideas for prayer cards.
Parents may be able to
foster a sense of the liturgical year in their homes by preparing for the
children a small table for prayer. Provide cloths in each of the 4 liturgical
colours that the children can place on the table according to the season. Add a
candle and perhaps a small statue of the Good Shepherd, the Holy Family etc.
Children enjoy spending time in quiet prayer or communal prayer, including
songs and hand made prayer cards. Ideas for short phrases can be taken from
words used in the Mass such as “Amen”, “Alleluia”, “Thanks be to God”, “Holy,
holy, holy”, “Thy kingdom come”. Other ideas can be found in the book “The Good
Shepherd and the Child a Joyful Journey”.
The Good Shepherd and the Child A Joyful Journey – this text has lots of great insight into using CGS in your home and is a core text for the CGS Catechist.
The prayer of children, particularly children under the age of 6 years, is quite different to that of the prayer of adults. It is spontaneous and includes silence and reflection. Consider a very small child silently watching an insect in the garden or concentrating intently on some task they are doing. This silent contemplation is a form of prayer. Very young children express their prayer in the joy of experiencing everything as new and wonderful. Their spoken prayer is that of thanksgiving and joy.
Gianna Gobbi in “Listening to God with Children” (p118) expresses it this way:
The child’s prayer can be very brief, such as “Jesus”, “Goodness”, “Light”, or “Amen” and is often followed by a long silence. Furthermore, the spontaneous prayer of the younger child is exclusively a prayer of praise and thanksgiving, rather than a prayer of petition. Thus, we hear: “Thank you for the light!” “Thank you for everything!” “Thank you because I am one of your sheep!” “Jesus is wonderful!” “My body is happy!”
This time of building their relationship with God is so beautiful and precious, we do not like to impose upon them our adult worries about the world, about our sin, our needs. We try to allow the children to continue to grow in the wonder of the new life they have been born into and grow in their natural praise and joyful thanks for all they have.
This does not mean that we neglect more formal prayer with children at this age. Through the prayers found in scripture in the prophecies and psalms, in the Infancy Narratives, the children are introduced to the language of prayer. They are in a time of their life where language is developing, and it is important for them to be exposed to the beautiful language of prayer.
“My soul magnifies the Lord!”
“The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need.”
“Thy Kingdom come!”
Later when they are a bit older and begin to see how we must work in community to serve the body of Christ, children enter a moral stage of development. Then is the time when children more naturally pray prayers of petition. Until then, let us join with them, sensitive to their needs, in joyful thanks and praise to our God.
The Atrium in the early church was the place near the church entrance where new believers prepared to be received into the church through the sacraments of initiation.
The atrium in the context of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is the gathering place; a place to prepare to become full members of the church; the place where the children come to develop a personal relationship with Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
The season of Advent marks the beginning of a new liturgical year. With the children this is celebrated by a procession and a changing of the colours of the prayer table cloth from green to purple. Purple is the colour used in the church for this season. We talk to the children about preparing our hearts to receive Jesus at the great feast of the Nativity.
We often reflect on the sensorial symbols used in the church to alert the children to what they will encounter at Mass; the priest will wear purple as a sign of preparation for the coming of Jesus.
During advent we seek out the signs to help us recognize this coming. We read the prophecies of Isaiah and wonder who is this one who is coming? This child who is called Immanuel – God with us, this child who has been given authority and will be called Mighty God, Wonderful Counsellor, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. We ponder about what the great light is that the people who walk in darkness will see.
We then look at the coming of Jesus, how his birth was announced to a young girl in Nazareth. We wonder at how the spirit came upon her and how she was able to respond with a yes to the call to become the tabernacle of the Lord.
We ponder how the secret was passed from God, through an angel first to Mary then to Elizabeth and her unborn child, who recognized Immanuel still being knitted in his mother’s womb.
We imagine how the shepherds felt when the angels told them that the savior had been born. That Mighty God born in a lowly stable, what does this mean? Who will he become??
But Advent is more than reliving the memories of the birth of Christ. It is not a memorial celebration. The word advent comes from the Latin adventus which is the translation of the Greek word Parousia, when Christ will come again.
Are we looking for the signs that the prophets foretold? Are we the people now walking in darkness, will we see the great light? Will we recognize the child born in a stable if he came to our world today? Will he come in power or will he come as before, as one who is little and humble? Are we looking and searching? Are we prepared?
The gospel reading for the first Sunday in advent is taken from Mark 13:33-37 where we are called to keep awake because we do not know the day or the hour of the master’s return. I invite you to read and reflect on these words.
Mark 13:33-37 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
33 Beware, keep alert;[a] for you do not know when the time will come. 34 It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. 35 Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36 or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37 And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”
Footnotes: Mark 13:33 Other ancient authorities add and pray
lts. It is spontaneous and includes silence and reflection. Consider a very small child silently watching an insect in the garden or concentrating intently on some task they are doing. This silent contemplation is a form of prayer. Very young children express their prayer in the joy of experiencing everything as new and wonderful. Their spoken prayer is that of thanksgiving and joy.
