7 Reasons to Experience a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Level 1 Formation Course

This coming Tuesday, January 26th we'll begin our 4th CGS Level 1 Formation course at the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  This course will meet weekly from 6:45pm to 8:15pm in the Cathedral Parish Hall.  We hope you'll consider joining us! For more information or to register contact me at cathedraldre@acsalaska.net or (907)209-1713.  

7 Reasons to experience a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Level 1 Formation course:

1.  Deepen your own faith life

This might seem counterintuitive to start with. I’m asking you to consider attending a formation course to be a catechist for young children, right? To deepen their faith life, not yours. But actually, the number one reason to attend CGS formation doesn’t have to do with wanting to serve children or to fill-in in the atrium when the need arises—the number one reason is because the Good Shepherd is calling your name. A CGS formation course isn’t a place to come to for information but for transformation.

For over 60 years CGS catechists have been living the spiritual life with children, ages three through twelve, and what they have discovered is that the child has many things to teach us as adults. In embracing the spirituality of childhood, we are given the invitation to ponder the word of God, the mysteries of our faith, and to grow in faith, hope and love. Oftentimes catechists say, “I came to CGS to serve children, but I stayed for myself.” Want to go deeper in your own faith life? Whether you are called to be a catechist in the atrium or not, attending a CGS formation course invites you to grow in your relationship with the Good Shepherd. 

2.   Support the spiritual development of the children in your life

Have you ever had a child ask you a question about God or faith that you didn’t know how to answer?  Have you ever wanted to pray with your children, godchildren or grandchildren but weren’t sure how? Yeah, me too.  When I attended my first CGS formation in 2010 I was the mother of two five year-old daughters and a two year-old son.  My three children were primed and hungry for all things spiritual, but I wasn’t quite sure how to talk to them about what mattered most. I came home from that training with new comfort and excitement to begin sharing faith with them in a more intentional way. In the Level 1 formation course topics include supporting the prayer life of the three to six year-old child, reading and listening to the Bible together, and opening up the signs and symbols of the liturgy.   

3.   Sit with the Word of God

The Bible is a gift that only grows more precious with time.  What might the word of God have to say to you now that you are a parent, grandparent, student, or retired? When we read the Bible we bring our whole lives, including our joys and struggles, our sorrows and consolation, and in the meeting of life and Word we discover something new. 

4.   Soak in the Liturgy

Ever wonder why we do what we do? Every action, movement and prayer in the Mass has meaning. Meditating on these liturgical moments can bring the Sacraments alive in fresh ways. 

5.   Fellowship

Connect with other adults in your faith community who are also interested in growing in their faith while living the religious life with children. 

6.   Snacks

There will be food.  Probably chocolate.  It’s scientifically proven to help in the transformation process.

7.    Be part of a worldwide association of adults dedicated to the spiritual life of the child

Since its beginning in the 1950s in Rome, Italy, the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd has spread to 37 countries at last count.  It is also being used in Colombia as part of formation for their seminarians, and by the Missionaries of Charity with the children they serve around the world, and in the formation of their sisters.  And in 2010 it spread to Juneau, Alaska.  As we work in our atrium with our children, we know we are a part of an international work that “is faithful to the spirit of the mustard seed” and “stands in solidarity with the least in the church” (#27 of the #32 Characteristics of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd).

At a meeting of the international council (or consiglio in Italian) in 2007, the co-founder of CGS, Sofia Cavaletti, offered a reflection on the movement’s growth: 

“The real measure is not ‘how many’ but ‘how deep’ in terms of the joy of children and adults who sit together in awe and wonder of the mystery of God.  This defies measurement, and is a reminder that the most we can aspire to, is to be little vessels of the overflowing abundance of God, like Mary, whose spirit exulted as God’s little servant and rejoiced in the greatness of God.”

We invite you to come and share the joy and abundance of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Listen.  Is the Good Shepherd calling your name?  

Epiphany Prayer Service

This afternoon we had our Epiphany Prayer Service with all three levels of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd in our parish (3 year-olds through 6th graders).  The children take the lead in planning and leading the prayer service every year.  At the beginning of our session I led a meditation with the children on the feast of Epiphany.  We ended the meditation by inviting the children to gather things from the Atria that spoke to them about "Epiphany", God's revelation of God's self to God's people.  As part of the Prayer Service two of the Level 3 children, Ani and Jessica, decided to gather the children's responses.  They read this meditation at the prayer service:  

This afternoon we decided we would decorate our prayer table with things that reminded us of God, Epiphany, and how God appears to us in so many ways.  We decided we would share some of them with you.



Eva brought up a statue of the Holy Family.  She said, "It tells me that God wanted to come down to the world as part of a family.  Families can have sad, happy, and scary times.  If you get scared you can go to your parents and you will be happy.  You can have fun."

Justin also liked the statue of the Holy Family.  He said he loves family because they stick together.





Jessica brought up a plant to the prayer table.  She said, "It symbolizes creation.  God made everything.  This is also a way God appears to us."

Cecily brought up the Good Shepherd, because "Jesus is the Good Shepherd and he takes care of his sheep like he takes care of us."

Ani brought up a drawing of the flower "because it reminds me of creation and how God made the world for us."






Joshua brought the Adoration of the Magi.  He said, "It reminds me of Jesus being born and receiving presents."

God appears to us in so many special ways!  We all can see God in a unique way to us.  God even appears in us when we are nice and generous to others.

By Ani and Jessica Rice

Preaching for Catechetical Sunday

This year I was asked to offer a reflection at our parish on catechetical Sunday about the spirituality of childhood.  It was wonderful to share some of the "pearls" of wisdom from the children in our Atria.  

In today’s reading from the Book of Numbers Moses cries out, “Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets!  Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!”  Today, I’m honored to be with you and to have a chance to speak to you about the prophets in our own midst, our children. 

For the past 5 years our parish has been part of a catechetical movement called the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.  Developed in Rome beginning in the 1950s by Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi and their collaborators—the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd strives to create a space within the Church for the child and the adult to live the religious life together—one where the religious characteristics and gifts of the child predominate.

For over 50 years Sofia and Gianna observed children from ages 3 to 12.  They offered them rich spiritual food from the scripture and the Liturgy and noted the child’s responses to these themes.  And the response they noticed above all was joy.  Joy in the proclamation of the One who calls them by name.  Joy in the numerous and vast gifts of creation to which human beings are called to like guests at a banquet. 

            Sofia Cavalletti writes, “Young children seem to want to point out to us that their way of going to God is different.”  She mentions the book The Imitation of Christ that speaks of the “royal way of the holy cross, as the privileged path for going to God, whereas the child seems to wish to point out to us the royal way of holy joy.”

            Over the past five years, my fellow catechists and I have reveled in being with the children in the Atrium, the special space that is prepared for the children in which to work and pray.  And throughout these years we’ve heard again and again, our children proclaiming the way of holy joy to us.  I want to share some of their words with you today. 

            This past Lent I was meditating with a six year-old boy on the Maxims of Jesus—the wisdom sayings that Jesus gave us to help us know how to live a good life.  These Maxims aren’t easy.  Among them is the command, “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.”  After looking at all 12 Maxims he chose the one, “Love your enemies.”  “Oh,” I said, “Would you like to choose this one to work on particularly this next week?”  His reply, “No, I’d like to work on this one for like EVER.”

 Another time, I pulled out the story of the Annunciation for my 1^st, 2^nd & 3^rd graders to meditate on.  They’d already heard it, some of them since they were 3, and so the challenge was to help them go back and find something new, something they had never thought of before in the passage.  I lit the candle and read aloud, from Gabriel coming to Mary and telling her to not be afraid, to announcing the news that she was soon to become pregnant with a son she was to call Jesus, to Mary’s questioning of the angel and then saying, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord.”  After the reading I asked questions to help us think about what we had heard: “Why do you think the angel said, ‘Do not be afraid?””  “Who is this baby who is going to be born?”  When we got to the end I thought of something I’d never asked them before:  “Here Mary says, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord.’  What do you think that might mean?”  The kids all gave me blank looks and then one girl, who was said, “maybe it means she knows that God created her . . . you know handmade.” 

Two years ago, in the Atrium with my 9 to 12 year-olds, I led a meditation on the great Plan of God, to bring all of creation to the full enjoyment of God.  Afterwards, one of my sixth graders who is an altar server asked me if we could go over to the church.  “Of course,” I said, “What would you like to do at the church?”  “I would like to carry the cross,” he replied, referencing the cross that is carried in procession at the beginning and the end of the Mass.  “Whenever I carry the cross,” he reflected, “something inside me wants to carry it more.” 

Our children indeed show us the way to holy joy.  Through their own insights they help us to see the words of the Gospel and the truths of our faith in a new light.  On behalf of the children, the families and the catechists I would like to tell you thank you for the many ways you have supported the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and our 7^th/8^th grade youth group.  Your prayers, talents and financial support have made it possible for us to train catechists, and build three beautiful atria at the Cathedral.  I would also like to offer you an invitation as well to consider if you are being called to enter more deeply into the spirituality of childhood, to immerse yourself in the Way of Holy Joy and to listen to for the voice of the Good Shepherd along with the children in our community.  We are looking for parishioners to partner with us in prayer, and to be trained as catechists and catechist aides.  Please contact me if you hear the Good Shepherd calling your name to be involved in this ministry. 

  May we pray together with Moses in thanksgiving, joy and longing, “Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets!  Would that the Lord might bestow his Spirit on them all!” 

        

Adult Practical Life

            I returned from a week in Georgia five days ago.  The week spent at a retreat center in Atlanta, with 40 or so Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Level 1 Formation Leaders and Formation Leaders in discernment—was rich, incredibly rich.  Every day, sometimes hourly it seemed, I was writing down in my journal different thoughts for articles and blog pieces and ideas to put into practice in our Cathedral Atria or Level 1 catechist trainings. One would think with all of this material I would have been spending every free moment since I returned writing. But all I’ve wanted to do is sit in my house, talk with the my children, listen to music, and piece a new quilt.  I didn’t go to Georgia thinking that I would come home and start a quilt.  We don’t really need one (in the same way that I don’t really need anymore new books—but quilts, like books, bring joy, whether technically needed or not). 

            It all began on Sunday, after a whirlwind, beautiful family wedding on Saturday (taking place 5 ½ hours after my flight landed in Juneau), when the girls seemed to be at loose ends, and full of my week of Level 1 discussion and reading and formation, I thought, “they need a work to do.”  Because it’s one of the most essential things that makes us human—we need a work, something fulfilling and satisfying, and concrete.  We need it more than being entertained.  And I think that’s why after a few days of summer break full of “entertainment”—movies, computer games (even if they are “educational”), and bouncing aimlessly on the trampoline, that my kiddos start to skulk around with droopy faces, and chant the refrain, “there’s nothing to do.” 

            So I pulled out the sewing machine that’s been resting since it pumped out 15 white garments in May, and the scraps basket and told them to pick out their favorite prints, iron them, fold them, and then come get me.  And we entered the magical world of napkin making.  And inexplicably, while I watched them iron, pin the seams, stitch, rip out stiches (it’s really hard to leave a 2 inch gap at the end so you can turn the napkin inside out), iron, pin the 2 inch gap, and choose a decorative top-stich, I realized I wanted to do it too.  I wanted to do a “big work” that would create something concrete and beautiful and useful. 

            And so A & J and I have been trading off who’s on the sewing machine, who’s with the iron, and who has the seam ripper (it’s hard to match up quilt squares perfectly too), and there’s been quite a bit of peace at our house.

            And as we’ve worked, side by side, and separately, I’ve been berating myself a little bit:  “Why are you doing this?  You don’t need a new quilt.  You need to do your homework, write up all the things you learned and thought  about in Georgia, and clean the bathrooms.”  But I’ve quieted and ignored this voice, because often things don’t need to be just learned and regurgitated in pithy blog pieces, but also to be incarnated.  And one of the best breakout sessions of the Georgia training for me was on “Practical Life as a Aide to Prayer.”  For a good chunk of time in this session, we put aside our notebooks, laptops, cameras and books, and in pairs went to our model Atrium and chose a practical life work.  For twenty minutes we worked with our materials.  One pair poured beans back and forth.  My partner and I did the “sponging work,” moving water in a bowl to an empty bowl, using a sponge.  Twenty minutes might seem long, but for me it went too quickly.  Noticing how the sponge soaked the water up so quickly, and how the water felt slipping through my fingers, a serene silence came over my mind, which had been bursting with questions moments earlier.  It seemed akin to walking the labyrinth, or Centering Prayer.

            In the book Child in the Church, Montessori reflected on the connection between practical life and prayer:  “they aid in perfecting the child, in making him calm, obedient, attentive to his own movements capable of silence and recollection” (24).  Just as a child pouring beans back and forth from glass containers in Level 1 or a Level 2 child tracing and coloring in crosses after reflecting on the History of the Kingdom of God, my quilt making is not a frivolous distraction from what I should really be doing, but my own Inner Guide’s prompting to be attentive and allow for a unity between body, mind and will to form as I piece and sew and iron and repeat, and to let the seed of my time in Georgia to incubate, trusting that in time it will bear fruit.  

Sunday ADVENTures

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Thanksgiving Prayer Service

Following the cross in the opening procession

On the day before Thanksgiving, after weeks of preparation in the Atrium, the 3 Levels of CGS at the Cathedral led the parish in a Thanksgiving Prayer Service.  This year, along with songs and prayers the children decided to perform two plays.

Each Atrium had something to offer:

• Level 1 Sunday:  Thank You Lord (song) 
• Level 2 Sunday:  Lord of the Dance (song) 
• Level 3 Sunday:  Lord of the Dance (signs)
• Level 1 Sunday:  Thank You Lord (song) 
• Level 2 Monday:  10 Lepers Play 
• Level 3 Wednesday:  Parousia Play 

10 Lepers Play 

The play about the lepers was taken from the gospel reading for Thanksgiving Day where Jesus heals 10 lepers, but only one returns giving thanks.

The Parousia play was written by the children in the Wednesday Level 3 Atrium and performed with the help of children from all the sessions.  They decided to frame it around the question, "Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?"  The play is set in a church during Thanksgiving Mass, but as the first strains of the opening song begins, there's a ruckus in the back of the church as a handful of youngsters begin to ask among themselves, "Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?"  The adults they ask are unable to answer until a young child comes forward to tell them, "I know, why we celebrate Thanksgiving:  to give thanks to God that he created us."

"But why did he create us?" the children persist.  Again, the adults are puzzled, but the young child says, "Because he needed someone to celebrate the Mystery of Creation, Redemption and Parousia with."

Using the quotes from the Bible about the Parousia in the Level 3 Atrium, the children conclude the play by reminding us of our great hope--the time when "the Lord will be our light forever."

Lord of the Dance with signs 

There was a lot to be thankful for that night, and always.

To Fall in Love

On Wednesdays we have begun a morning Level 1 Atrium session for home school and pre-school children.  I love Wednesday mornings, because it is also my time to be in the Level 1 Atrium.  On Sundays I get to be with Level 3, on Mondays in Level 2, and so now my life as a catechist is complete with Wednesdays in Level 1.  The pace to this class, possibly because of the excellent catechist/child ratio (1/2) is peaceful and calm.  I leave our Wednesday morning 2-hour sessions as grounded and refreshed as I do after a Centering Prayer session and these mornings remind me why I love this work.

Today, one of the children called me over to the Good Shepherd parable table and asked me to read “The Found Sheep” for her while she moved the 2 dimensional figures of the sheep and the Good Shepherd.  I waited while she hid one sheep behind a blue scripture booklet propped on the table and then set the other snow white sheep figures in the sheepfold with the Good Shepherd standing guard by the gate.  When she was ready we lit a candle and I began to read the words from Luke’s Gospel:  “What man among you with a hundred sheep, losing one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the missing one ‘til he found it?  And when he found it, would he not joyfully take it on his shoulders . . .”  I read slowly, pausing as the child moved the Good Shepherd towards the hidden sheep.  At the last phrase “would he not joyfully take it on his shoulders,” she picked up the sheep and held it up to the Good Shepherd, and under her breath said with delighted certainty, “Yeah, he would!” 

I continued on with the parable, watching as the child carefully, and with her own deep joy, carried the lost sheep back to the sheepfold on the shepherd’s shoulders. 

This little girl's response to this parable, which she has heard many, many times, reminded me of an Italian word I heard many times in my Level 1 CGS training:  “Innamoramento.”  Having lived in Italy for a few months in my early 20s I love to say this word with plenty of Italian flare.  It seems to be one of those words that sounds like it means.  Sofia Cavalletti (one of the founders of CGS) described it this way:

“I think that ‘innamoramento’ is the basis of religious life, and also of moral life because moral life and religious life are not two different things.  If we help the child to establish a relationship with God in enjoyment, in ‘innamoramento’, then we have also done the best moral formation of the child.  You all know how much psychology now stresses the importance of love in every field of human life.  I think that a global ‘innamoramento’ is possible for everybody before six.  It may happen, of course, for anyone at any moment of our lives, but before six it’s possible and it’s easy for everybody.  It comes out quite naturally from the depths of their soul.  They really fall in love quite naturally.  There are many things to be done after six but there is one thing to be done before six—and it is to help the children to fall in love.”

As Pedro Arupe, the Jesuit priest wrote, “Nothing is more practical than . . . falling in love with God.”  In our children's encounters with the Good Shepherd through scripture, the sacraments, and their own rich lived experience of God’s love, they come to know the God who seeks the lost and who joyfully brings them home.  May we all so completely, fall in love with God.