By Jay Sorgi for the Register
Most U.S. Catholics have heard the phrase “Catechesis of the Good Shepherd” (CGS) at some point in their lives of faith. But few Catholics have experienced it, compared to typical catechesis or religion classes in Catholic schools.
Yet several parishes in the Diocese of Lincoln are offering CGS, a way of teaching the Catholic faith that goes beyond mental knowledge, makes Christ and the riches of the faith more tangible, and builds greater reflectivity and understanding of God’s love for them as their shepherd.
“It’s a place where the children get to encounter God in a way that makes sense to them,” said Dana Rashilla, a CGS catechist who belongs to North American Martyrs Parish in Lincoln.
“We take huge theological, philosophical concepts, what [catechists] receive in training, but they bring them down and so they fit the appropriate child development.”
That learning happens in a space that gives the child the chance to learn the lesson themselves instead of teacher-driven pedagogy. CGS’s literal space, unlike traditional education, is not called a classroom, but a word stemming from an ancient Roman term, the atrium.
“The atrium was the place between the street and the church where people gathered, where catechumens would come,” said Sister Teresa Marie, C.K., a catechist at St. James in Crete.
“[It] is prepared for that child to come in and to have that place where they can bridge that gap between whatever they’re experiencing in their chaotic or peaceful lives at home, and to come into contact with Jesus.”
Sister Teresa Marie revealed how unlike traditional educational methods, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd doesn’t foster book knowledge as much as experiential, meaning-provoking understanding of Christ’s presence in these young peoples’ lives.
“The heart of catechesis is the person of Jesus Christ,” she said.
“Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is not about a testing of how much information, head knowledge they know, although we seek with the child for them to know the truth and to know the One who is truth.”
Kara Kohel, who offers CGS at St. Joseph and St. Teresa parishes in Lincoln, compares the child’s experience at that level of catechesis to the kind of encounters that often happen in adults’ deeper prayer experiences.
“In the way that Ignatian prayer is imaginative for adults and experiential in a way that you’re imagining certain settings or situations when you’re reading through Scripture, the children are getting to come to the atrium and encounter the Scripture, but also have a physical aspect of that,” she said.
She offers the example of the scriptural telling of the Annunciation, where atriums could use everything from a diorama to dolls and clay sculptures of Mary and the angel Gabriel.
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SNR photos | Natalie Bender
“They’re able to work with a physical representation of the Scripture that they’re praying with and can use that in their meditation and their contemplation,” she said. “It is really more of an experience of prayer, a place where children can come to pray, to encounter Jesus Christ in the Good Shepherd, and then get to spend time with him in a way that is developmentally appropriate for young children.”
Rashilla further compares the way these young children learn in CGS to Lectio Divina (“divine reading,”a practice of slow, prayerful reading of Scripture), turning hands-on experience that looks like what a priest does in Mass into something that fertilizes contemplation of God in a way a child can understand.
“They’re moving things around. They’re pouring water [into] vessels, but then that translates later into preparing cruets, so they can contemplate what that action means when they go to Mass with their family on Sunday,” she said.
“We just dive deeper into each moment, especially each moment of the Mass and each moment of our faith and in scripture and parables, and once we really break those down so the kids get to spend time with them, it leads them into contemplation.”
The goal is for the catechist not to tell the young person the facts of God’s love in their experience of the Catholic faith, but let experience give them the answer with the catechist accompanying their journey.
“This student that I was questioning, I was wondering, ‘Are they really ready?’ And I didn’t know for sure. Were they really able to identify right from wrong?” Sister Teresa Marie said about one encounter in the atrium before hearing her young friend get the ‘light bulb moment’ about Jesus: “‘I know who the shepherd’s voice is. And I know why I need to follow the voice of the shepherd.’ And then he said, ‘I’ve been waiting all my life for someone to show me this work.’
“Granted, he was only 7 or 8 years old,” she said, “but really I think that was the truth that the Lord needed to reveal to him at that time.”
Some catechists in Lincoln have received training for more than just the initial Level 1, which serves children between 3 and 6 years old. Greater training for Level 2 (6- to 9-year-olds) and Level 3 (9- to 12-year-olds) practitioners is allowing for more students of older ages to receive higher levels of catechesis through CGS.
Rashilla said North America Martyrs is opening weekend training opportunities for new catechists, who start with Level 1 students before advancing to levels 2 and 3.
At any young age, CGS offers the chance for young people to let God light up the light bulb themselves, and for catechists to simply facilitate and accompany moments of Holy Spirit-led truth.
“‘Sometimes I’m that sheep that the Lord comes and finds,’” Sister Teresa Marie said of another young person’s discovery.
“And he brings me back.”
To learn more about training with Catechesis of the Good Shepherd visit www.cgsusa.org.
