At the beginning of Advent, one of the elementary-age children in our church walked into her Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Atrium and bee-lined for the shelf holding the materials for the infancy narratives. She drafted a little boy to help, and soon they were busy setting the narratives in order.
The boy carefully laid out small rugs end-to-end across the floor, honoring the handmade materials that are used to teach the holy stories of our faith. The girl followed him, setting up the hand-painted dioramas and figures that correspond to each story. The Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of Jesus, the Adoration of the Shepherds, the Presentation in the Temple, the Magi, and the Flight into Egypt — one by one she carefully set them out.
Before this Advent, I had never spent entire class periods in our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Atria (classrooms), and I was fascinated and blessed by the experience. On this day, I watched as the girl paused to consider which order the narratives should follow: was the Presentation in the Temple before or after the coming of the Magi? Our traditional children’s Christmas pageants portray the Magi arriving at the manger just after the shepherds and the angels, but this little girl knew there is more to the story. She placed the diorama and figures of the Presentation in the Temple before the Magi arrived, having learned that the Presentation happened 40 days after Jesus’ birth, before the Epiphany, when we celebrate the coming of the Magi.
When the children had finished arranging the narratives, our whole class gathered on the rug to admire them. The catechist asked, “How did you know that today we were going to be talking about the Visitation?” The girl replied, “I didn’t know. I haven’t been to church for a while. Last time I came, I put the infancy narratives out of order. I wanted to see if I could put them in order.” Placing the infancy narratives in order takes both scriptural and liturgical sophistication, and this child remembered even after an extended absence.
We gazed at the dioramas, and someone noticed the small doves the girl had carefully placed in the rafters of several of the dioramas. The catechist said, “Tell us about the doves.” The girl replied, “I saw the basket of doves and decided to put them in the scenes, like the Annunciation, where the Holy Spirit comes.”
From the care shown to the learning materials, to the nuanced understanding of the timeline, to the placement of the doves, this child shared with all of us a sophisticated understanding and spiritual appreciation of the infancy narratives, absorbed through the meditative and purposeful work of catechesis. Our catechist tells adults who wonder what happens in catechesis, “If we can get the faith into the children when they are small, then even if they or their parents quit coming to church for a while, their faith will be there when they need it.” Deep faith nurtured in small children is a foundation that will always support them, whatever life brings.
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a way, and a good way, that many churches till the soil of their children’s spirits. Through it we offer our children an often profound engagement with Scripture, sacraments, and liturgy. Time in the Atria looks different than traditional didactic Sunday School classes with which our parish leaders and parents might be familiar. As I have learned from our catechists, this is by design.
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a Montessori-based faith formation program developed by Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Goobi in Rome beginning in the 1950s. It is born from the joy of a child’s encounter with God. CGS is based on the belief that God and the child are already in relationship. Children grow in their relationship with God through a deep engagement in Scripture, the sacraments, and liturgy. Because of this, the class periods have the character of self-directed contemplative play through which children enjoy God.
This Advent I noticed some other things about CGS as well:
A CGS Atrium is a space in which parents can disciple their children and be discipled themselves. As I moved between classes, I noticed parents who had stayed with their children. It is the ultimate homeschooling experience for busy families. The parent and child would be together on the floor or at a table, enjoying one another, contemplating a lesson together, respecting one another and resting together in God’s presence. This is profoundly healing for children and parents who are disconnected, anxious, and stressed. This is a space in which parents can be supported in connecting with their children and taking up their healthy, authoritative role as the primary disciple-makers of their children.
A CGS Atrium is a space in which children with special physical, neurological, and emotional needs can flourish. At St. Paul’s, we have seen an influx of children who struggle to flourish in traditional classrooms. In an Atrium, children spend much of their time in self-directed work. They are empowered to choose what they would like to do and go where their curiosity leads. They learn self-regulation as they attend to the needs of their bodies to sit on the floor, stand at a station, or move quietly, and as they focus on a work, care for the physical objects, and return their station to the way they found it. There are a wide variety of works that can accommodate children with a variety of interests and physical and learning needs. Children are supported in their emotional needs as they rest in intimacy with God and the attentiveness of their catechists.
CGS engages children, youth, and teens with liturgy and doctrine. This spring, a catechist sent me a video clip of our small children learning about the Eucharist. They had chosen to set the altar. A robed “deacon” was holding the Gospel book over her head. A “celebrant” held a Missal and launched into chanting the sursum corda. The children had noticed that the priests had begun chanting the sursum corda on Easter two weeks earlier, and they sang it too. In another video clip, the children had gathered around an “intercessor” holding a book and praying the Prayers of the People, even mentioning people from our regular Sunday prayer list.
This careful observance of the liturgy does not stop in catechesis, however. In worship, our teens who have gone through CGS often sit together in the front row. They have been deeply formed into the sacraments. One, after visiting another church that did not add water to the wine, exclaimed with exasperation, “How are we reminded of the dual nature of Christ if there is not water in the wine?” Our youths’ appreciation for our liturgy continues as the youth group leads itself in Evening Prayer or Compline each Sunday night (it prefers Compline).
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is in many ways countercultural. It is a place for children and their parents to slow down and enjoy God and one another in the midst of a busy life. It is a place where handmade materials fabricated by our church members are preferred over store-bought. It is a place for curiosity, contemplation, and relationship, where content is absorbed through play more than taught. It is a place where the spiritual soil of our children’s lives is tilled deeply and with great care. I am grateful to have spent these few hours during Advent, preparing with our children for the coming of our newborn King.
