Christine Sherratt ⎮  Spring 2012

A gray, rainy morning greeted the adults and young children at All Saint’s Anglican church in Amesbury, Massachusetts on the Second Sunday of Lent.  Despite the dismal day, the Atrium was warm, bright, and ready for the songs of praise and prayer that usually begin the morning.  Soon the room was full of contented, busy children and adults working together.  Afterward, as I reflected on my work as catechist that day, one moment stood out. It was a remark made by one of our six-year olds during a lesson I spontaneously gave her concerning that most particular time and place the Good Shepherd calls His sheep to be with Him: Holy Communion. As we discussed how Jesus is present in the Bread and the Wine, and how it is that Jesus gives all of Himself to us, the reflection she offered about the sheep gathered around the altar was simple: “They have Him inside them.”

Each week in this room, adults and children engage in mutual religious formation through the approach known as the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Some readers will be familiar with Sofia Cavalletti who, with Montessorian Gianna Gobbi, began this work more than fifty years ago. Now it has spread from one room in Italy to many countries; it has been chosen for use by the Missionaries of Charity. How could the humble work of “teaching religion” to children grow to enjoy a worldwide presence? Part of the answer is that service to the child and the Word contributes to the formation of the adults who choose this path.  They, like the children, are changed and brought deeper into their faith. This growth and faith in turn has the power to shape the theology and formation of the Church. But how?

When an adult sits with children before the power and presence of the Trinity, he or she receives the love, the teachings, and the movement of the Holy Spirit they themselves long to impart. Catechists present lessons from the two “pillars” of Scripture and Liturgy. Teaching is both challenged and eased because children are “essentialists,” that is, they force adults to give them the most basic, foundational truths in the Word. When catechists seek to answer the child’s call, “Help me come closer to God by myself,” they too are drawn close and their faith grows deeper. This growth moves into the church.

Another way the church is formed through this work is that children offer a whole-person response to hearing the Biblical narratives, a response that adults can witness and cultivate in themselves. Joy, wonder, and often profound silence are common ways children receive the New Testament parables and stories of Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. When the catechist is with the children, he or she slows down. Contemplation allows us, even gives us, permission to respond to the Gospel in ways other than cognitively. In this is freedom.

Finally, working with children forms community. Adults often practice what it means to be members of one another and in service to each other with adults. But living this way consistently with children lets the adults witness the work of God in very different ways. Consistent, caring adults who journey in faith with children offer them the great gift of the Church taking them seriously. Likewise, since the tools of this Catechesis are the Bible, Liturgy, the Holy Spirit and the child, adults find refreshment in being reminded of the foundations of the faith. Those who serve with me in this work call it a privilege to contemplate the essentials, and hear these truths proclaimed back to them from children unburdened by worldly cares. Whether they be prophets, messengers from heaven, neither, or both, it seems that children declare things the church needs to hear. Perhaps this is the primary reason Jesus bids the adults to “let them [the children] come,” and tells us we must become like them.

In his 2012 Ash Wednesday Letter, Archbishop Robert Duncan offers these thoughts:

1. Immersion in God's Word and contemplation on the mighty acts of our Savior in his Incarnation, Passion and Death-on-the-Cross are also means by which our lives - both individually and corporately - are anchored in Christ. There is no substitute for them, and there is no exercise more central to our discipleship than these twin enterprises. 
   

Work with children, and through the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd in particular, offers this immersion and contemplation to child and adult alike. One hope I hold dear in my heart is that an ever increasing number of adults will perceive these are gifts and fruit God wants for them. I pray that they, and their churches, will have a new vision of the high value and calling it is to work with the children in God’s Kingdom. For us as disciples, this is not an option, but a command; not only a duty, but a full measure of grace. The Church wants her members to live centered in Christ, moved by the Spirit, and anchored in the love of the Father. One means she uses to cultivate this is to encourage parishioners to enter catechesis with children. By His favor, the work of catechesis will lead all people “Higher up and Deeper in.”

“…then the Spirit's harvest gathered, then the Lamb in Majesty; then the Father's Amen;
then, then, then.”

~ Jaroslav J. Vaida