By Annie-Rose Keith
Connecting Life and Faith
Friends, I present an endeavor for your parish catechesis that would not only affect the students participating but their families as well. There are several parishes already participating in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, and I firmly believe, if you’ll pardon the colloquialism, that it’s where it’s at.
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (C.G.S.) is a method of catechesis and evangelization for children that was developed in the middle of the 20th century by biblical scholar and professor, Sophia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi, a colleague and companion of Dr. Maria Montessori. Montessori was a child psychologist, physician and a Catholic, and is world renowned for her method of educating children using their natural curiosities and relationship with their environment.
Montessori was particularly attracted to the spiritual capabilities of children. In “The Discovery of the Child,” Montessori writes, “Children are so capable of distinguishing between natural and supernatural things that their intuition made us think of a period of religious alertness.” Catechists and parents have a finite amount of time to enrich and make able to flourish the insights and religious impulses of a child. Children are able to perceive a sense of God, and it's the job of the parent (and, arguably, the catechist as well) to help them develop this religious sense.
Cavalletti and Gobbi did not set out to develop an entire method of catechesis, but rather this method was the fruit of preparing, observing and guiding a small group of children to receive their First Communion. Cavaletti and Gobbi asked the simple question — how do we teach our children the faith? The answer to this timeless question, as any modern-day catechist will tell you, is participation in Mass and the reading (and understanding) of scripture. I am confident that modern-day parents will remind us that those two things are very difficult with children of any age but especially children ages 3-12 which is the focus of this method. For our parish, we will begin with Level 1, which is for children 3-6 years old.
In his essay, “The New Pagans and the Church,” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI, observes that our world is still very much based in Christianity, and “the modern man today, when he meets someone else anywhere, can assume with some certainty that he has a baptismal certificate, but not that he has a Christian frame of mind.” This modern man must assume that his neighbor is lacking in faith. Just because someone is baptized, does not mean they have made the faith they were baptized in their identity, and we unfortunately see this in many of our Catholic school graduates who leave the faith despite having years of formation in our schools. By establishing Catechesis of the Good Shepherd here at Resurrection (Parish), we can reverse this. It will not be a quick reversal by earthly standards, but the church works in centuries for good reason.
The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd engages our youngest children with beautiful presentations and materials that invite them to ponder the mysteries of God and our faith as well as their role in our faith and God's role in their life. There is a clear difference between life in the atrium, or classroom for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, and the formal and more traditional approach we see in theology classes yet. A child’s work in the atrium lays the foundations for success in those traditional theology classes because they are introduced to the beauty and goodness of our faith at an age where they are completely open to receiving the truth. By giving them space to think about these deep questions, they take ownership which only results in more love for God and more love for our faith.
Friends, this program is necessary if we are to lay a stronger foundation to build heaven here in our diocese and beyond. By teaching our children to make a home for Jesus in their hearts, by thinking about and relating to his humanity and the humanity of the saints in heaven around him, they realize that this church and our beautiful faith are for them and they can become like Jesus. By bringing Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to more parishes, our 3-6-year-olds will develop a keen sense of God’s role in their lives. This method is a solution to the problem posed by Cardinal Ratzinger in “Communication and Culture: New Methods of Evangelization in the Third Millennium.” In it, Ratzinger presents the predicament of the Gospel appearing to be “merely one item among many on a list” which can be rejected for the sake of “more important messages.” At a very surface level, our parishes need Catechesis of the Good Shepherd because our youngest students and children deserve to have a place that allows them to slow down and love Jesus. By participating in this program, our youngest students will desire to follow Jesus because they feel like valued members of his body, the church. They know he is for them and that will produce beautiful ripple effects across our community.