3 minute read
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd: Helping Children Grow in their Own Natural Spirituality
From the youngest age, it’s never too early to start building a strong faith foundation in our children. Here at Saint Michael Parish, the Montessori-based Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS) program gives children a hands-on approach to learning the building blocks of the faith and allows them to develop their own spiritual lives and relationships with God.
“Catechesis of the Good Shepherd really focuses on the spirituality of the child — the assumption that children have their own spiritual life and connection with God,” says Elizabeth Lyons. “It uses a hands-on method that works well with children and allows them to share what is happening in their spiritual life. It also takes Doctrine and Scripture and presents it to the child in a way that they can grasp, so they can understand it and it becomes real to them. It uses all the methods that Maria Montessori observed that worked well for children and is rooted in sacraments, Scriptures, liturgy, prayer, and faith.”
Advertisement
CGS takes place in a prepared environment called the Atrium, which includes furniture and materials at the child’s level, much like a Montessori classroom. The Atrium is designed to be a quiet place where children can work in an environment that allows them to pray and hear God’s voice. CGS catechists undergo 60 hours of training for qualification to teach each age level — ages 3-5, ages 6-8, and ages 9-12.
“We are taught theology, as well as how to present these stories to the children, and the developmental process of the child at each stage,” Elizabeth says. “Our catechists have said that they have learned so much going through the training, and have grown in their own faith, so this has been a re-education for them, as well.”
CGS sessions take place on Sunday through Thursday, and each age group has its own Atrium, designed for up to 12 children at a time. Each child will attend a CGS session once a week.
Elizabeth, whose educational background is in theology with a concentration in catechesis, was drawn to CGS because it mirrors the incarnational way in which God passes the faith onto us.
“One of the things we talked about when I was studying theology was how God passes on the faith to us in an incarnational way — the Mass itself is incarnational, we use our body to pray, and we use all the sensory modalities to communicate with God,” she says. “The prayers we say, the readings we listen to, all of that teaches us about God without a lot of further explanation. CGS does the same thing.
“From the earliest age, the child is presented with Scripture directly from the Bible — we don’t use children’s Bibles,” she adds. “We start off with the smallest, simplest passages that the child is able to grasp, and we use materials that they can touch, hold and move to accompany the Scriptures. For example, the Good Shepherd is the focal piece for the youngest age group, and the material is a pasture with sheep that the child can move. They can latch onto these concrete images, and it helps them to understand the idea behind them. There is also an overwhelming sense of wonder and joy in the child, and we let them wonder about the answers to our questions instead of giving them the answers outright.”
Over the years, Elizabeth has seen how this approach allows the children to truly develop their own understanding of the faith.
“It’s been amazing to see their retention of the Scriptures, and how it becomes a part of them,” she says. “For example, we tell them that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, but we don’t say outright who the sheep are. But a couple of years down the road, if you ask them, they will say and understand that we are the sheep.”
Each Atrium has an altar where children can reflect on the materials and pray.
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd allows children to develop their own individual spiritual lives and relationships with God.
Children work with the Good Shepherd material, designed for ages 3-6.
Children work with the Blue Unity Strip, a work that explains salvation history, designed for ages 6-9.
