‘Falling in love with God’: How Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is helping children encounter Christ

"God and the child - they understand each other.”

It’s 9 a.m. on Sunday morning. Mass has just concluded at a Catholic parish in suburban Denver.

A gaggle of three-to-six-year-olds sit in a softly lit side chapel adjacent to the church, swinging their legs back and forth in the chestnut pews. (One of them is my daughter, who did not agree to be interviewed for this report.)

Credit: The United States Association of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.

Their teacher, Mrs. C, makes sure the students are all accounted for, and leads them from the side chapel through a hallway and into a classroom.

Known as the “atrium,” the classroom set up is different from what would typically be seen in catechetical classrooms. There are no rows of desks or tables. The room is lined with low brown shelves, a perfect size for the students in the space.

Mrs. C lays out a green rug, and the eight preschoolers all sit cross-legged on it, in front of a small table laid with a white cloth, a figurine of Jesus the Good Shepherd, a red lantern, and candles that Mrs. C lights.

“Alright friends, shall we unbury our ‘Alleluia’?” Mrs. C asks, to enthusiastic responses.

Because it is the first time the class is meeting after Easter, they dig out a piece of paper with ‘Alleluia’ written on it, which they had “buried” in a treasure chest during Lent.

They have a brief discussion about the recently-celebrated Triduum and Easter liturgies, and the fact that Jesus is Risen, which is why the ‘Alleluia’ has been set free.

The tiny charges, though wiggly, are listening and participating. An overly wiggly three-year-old is handed a fidget toy.

In a short amount of time - maybe 10 minutes in - Mrs. C begins a song that leads the preschoolers into the second part of class, where they are invited to choose from the shelves a hands-on activity, known as a “work,” to further their reflection on the things they’ve discussed.

The kids sing along with Mrs. C: “Cross your legs, hands on knees, make the Sign of the Cross, make a silence,” they sing. Something akin to quiet settles over the room (punctuated by giggles and chatter, though Mrs. C is always gently encouraging them back to the silence) as the children select their works.

There are many works to choose from: a play pasture with toy sheep and Jesus the Good Shepherd, a basket with cups, tongs, and pom-pom balls to practice the skill of transferring, a kit for polishing silverware, and so on.

One small friend, a boy, chooses to dress himself in the preschool-sized priest vestments and play priest at a tiny altar - complete with a white altar cloth, paten, chalice and (wooden) candles - at the front of the room.

A little girl selects a clipboard with paper and some crayons for coloring. Another little friend selects a priest doll, and changes out his vestments with different liturgical colors - red, green, purple, and white.

As class time goes on, the kids switch activities at will, usually playing with a work for 5-10 minute segments.

A few kids eventually choose the cleaning supplies, and spend their time “washing” (spraying with a spray bottle of water) the window and some of the counters in the room, in an effort to “beautify” the space.

Mrs. C moves around the room, helping children as needed, and asking a few questions — but most of the class time is self-led by the students and what works they choose.

It may be hard for students to articulate what they learn in class. But their concentration is clear as they play priest at the altar, or dress the priest doll in the vestments they see at Mass, or in the way something they color relates to what they talked about in the beginning of class.

If you have never heard of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd - or learned about its methods - this may seem like a strange way of going about catechesis.

But there’s a method to the madness.

Where does Catechesis of the Good Shepherd come from?

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is a catechetical program inspired by the methods of the Italian Catholic physician and educator Dr. Maria Montessori. It combines teaching from Scripture and liturgy with Montessori education methods — think a prepared environment with a lot of sensory, hands-on work, aiming to align to a child’s development level.

The CGS program was developed by Sofia Cavalletti, a Hebrew and biblical scholar, and by Gianna Gobbi, a Montessori educator.

And while it still seems new in some parts of the United States, the approach has been around for decades.

In Cavalletti’s home country of Italy in the mid-1950s, a friend asked Cavalletti if she could teach catechesis to her son and two other children. Cavalletti balked at first, due to her lack of experience teaching children, but her friend insisted, and Cavalletti agreed.

Cavalletti was delighted to discover that children have “a way of being in the presence of God that is both unique to the child and a gift to the adult who stops long enough to notice,” according to the official CGS history.

Shortly after she had begun, Cavalletti was introduced to Gobbi, and the two of them started working together.

Cavalletti and Gobbi “did not come to develop a new religious formation,” Mary Mirrione, the national director of the United States Association of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, told The Pillar.

“They were brought a few children and asked to prepare them for Communion. And then they kept working on it. In fact, for the first 15 years, they called it an ‘experiment,’ until a bishop in Mexico said, ‘You know, you’ve been doing this for a long time, it needs a name. You should call it Catechesis of the Good Shepherd’.”

Cavalletti and Gobbi were not starting completely from scratch - they were building on a work Montessori herself had begun, after Pope Pius X lowered the age a child could receive First Communion from 12 years old to seven years old.

Pope Pius X consulted Montessori about how to prepare these younger children for their sacraments, and Montessori continued to meet with several other popes after Pius X about her religious and educational work before her death in 1952. This religious formation work was then further developed by Gobbi and Cavalletti.

Today, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is present in at least 65 countries throughout the world. The program is also adapted for use in three different Christian traditions - Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Orthodox. (This article discusses the Roman Catholic tradition of CGS). The CGS website for the United States includes endorsements from Catholic bishops in the dioceses of Memphis, Corpus Christi, Phoenix, Kansas City, Seattle, San Antonio, Pittsburgh and Green Bay, and CGS classrooms can be found throughout the country.

How does Catechesis of the Good Shepherd work?

The Montessori method can be seen throughout the CGS classroom, called an “atrium,” which is an environment prepared by the catechists specifically for the children. The goal of the atrium is to facilitate a relationship between the child and God, and is geared toward providing a peaceful, calm environment for community, prayer and worship - more like a retreat center than a traditional classroom.

Currently, CGS exists in four different levels. There is an infant and toddler atrium for ages 0-2, a Level I atrium for ages 3-6, a Level II atrium for ages 7-9, and a Level III atrium for 9-12.

The atriums are divided in this way to support the child according to his or her development, Mirrione noted. A child before the age of reason (around age seven) has a special relationship to God - one of pure love - that should be embraced before introducing a child to the moral life, she said.

“They are simply falling in love with (God), before they have to process the moral response,” Mirrione said. “That's important for us as humans.”

And while “silent” and “contemplative” is probably not how most people would describe three-to-six-year-olds, Mirrione said that is often what the Level I atrium environment is like.

“You don't try to fill the time to entertain them, or get them to memorize something and be able to repeat it back to you,” said Sr. Benedicta Hawkins, a Marian Sister in Lincoln, Neb., with experience teaching CGS.

“But you really try to facilitate that encounter with the Good Shepherd, stepping aside as much as possible, which was a big lesson in humility for me, that (the class) was not all about me, and that God is greater than any one teacher.”

Ideally, the children spend two hours in the atrium, “which becomes challenging, especially when religious formation is viewed as a subject rather than an encounter,” Mirrione said.

During this time, the children typically do practical, hands-on “works” - activities that encourage concentration, and therefore contemplation, through fine motor skills (think stringing beads, or polishing objects, or pouring liquid). There may be a group discussion of a parable, or a catechist might focus more on individual instruction with each child.

The class might be learning a story from Scripture, like the Annunciation or the parable of the mustard seed, and the children are given concrete materials that they can use and touch that remind them of that parable, such as tiny mustard seeds on a piece of clear tape.

“These are not used as a teacher’s tool,” Mirrione noted, “they are a child’s material. The adult hands it over to the children so they can continue meditating on that Gospel.”

They also might examine articles used on the altar at Mass, such as a chalice or a paten, and discuss various parts of the liturgy, such as what hand gestures a priest uses at Mass and what they mean.

A Level II atrium, with seven-to-nine-year-olds, is often a noisier place, Mirrione said. Children this age are much more social, and their work in the atrium builds on what they learned in Level I, in addition to introducing lessons on morality.

“Level II is a different ball game from Level I, because they start talking a lot more about the moral life and moral parables. So they’ll talk about parables like the Good Samaritan, the insistent friend, the 10 wise virgins,” Sr. Benedicta said.

“I had a group of kids in the Level II atrium, and they were looking at ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ and ‘love your enemies’, and they go to school together,” she added. “And they were talking about a girl who's not very nice at recess. And they said ‘Well, maybe tomorrow, instead of running away from her, we could invite her to play with us.’ And so on their own, they came to this conclusion.”

The Level II atrium also continues the liturgical learning begun in Level I.

“In Level II, we have a work called the synthesis of the Mass, where we actually have a table, we have all of the (articles related to Mass), and we put them on in the order in which the Mass happens,” Mirrione said.

The Level III students then have a work that builds on this knowledge of the Mass, where they have a wooden box version of the Roman Missal, with drawers instead of pages, that contain the prayers of the Mass that students can arrange in the order of the Mass.

“It’s a full deep dive into the Mass,” Mirrione said.

Level III students are also preparing for a lifelong relationship with Christ and are encouraged to ask the question: “What is the kingdom of God and my place in it?”

“We say we have the ‘spiral method’ in that we keep coming back to what they already know and bring it on further or deeper or in more detail,” Mirrione added.

Credit: The United States Association of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.

‘I never left Him’: The impact of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd

While Mirrione has numerous stories about the impact of CGS on its past students, the CGS organization has never done a formal study on the long-term effectiveness of CGS, such as a study indicating whether these students remain in the Church their whole lives.

“We're small,” Mirrione said, pointing to the 12-person staff and limited resources of the United States Association of The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. “We can never afford such a study.”

But the stories she tells about the program illustrate its impacts.

In one instance, Mirrione was visiting a CGS Level I atrium, where she observed a four-year-old girl in particular. At the beginning of class, the students heard the parable of the treasure in the field. (“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matthew 13:44)

After the reading of the parable, the girl decided to play with the nativity set in the room for a while. Next she moved on to the art materials, and drew a big picture of the nativity, with a treasure box next to Jesus’ face.

“I had never connected that parable to the nativity,” Mirrione said. “And I would have never done that in a lesson. But she didn't need me to do that, because when she heard the announcement of the parable, she immediately thought of the Incarnation.”

There is an archive of CGS artwork which Mirrione called the “children’s religious response.” Mirrione encouraged parents to see the theology and spirituality in the religious pictures their children draw, or bring home from CGS, as it might show more than what children are able to articulate about their faith.

“What happens to the artwork that the children do? It comes home, it goes on the refrigerator. We say, ‘Oh, isn't that pretty?’ We love our children, we delight in what they do. But I don't know that we generally look for theological content in their artwork,” Mirrione said. “She won't be able to tell you (the fruits of her contemplation), but she might draw it for you.”

In another story, Mirrione recalled how a former CGS student of hers, now an adult, recently approached her. After talking about some of their memories from the atrium, the woman told Mirrione: “Well I just wanted you to know, I’ve never left Him.”

“I wanted to sob,” Mirrione said. “I gave her a big hug.”

In another story, Mirrione was in Portugal training a group of Missionaries of Charity sisters in the CGS program, so they could teach it to the children at their orphanage (CGS is widely used for catechesis of children within the Missionaries of Charity). While the training was going on, the sisters decided to close the atrium at the orphanage so they could focus on their course with Mirrione.

But one little three-year-old boy from the orphanage missed the atrium so much, he snuck out of nap time and across the orphanage complex to get there. Once he was at the door of the atrium, he called out “Hallelujah!”

“And I looked at the sisters and I said, ‘Well, he knows the password. I’m going to go work with him,’” Mirrione recalled.

“All of us (with CGS) have these stories that we share with each other that lift up why we do what we do,” she added.

‘It changed the way I prayed’

And the impact of CGS does not end with the students.

When Sister Benedicta Hawkins, a Marian Sister of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, joined the college ministry team at Benedictine College in Kansas as a student, she wanted to plan and lead some of the big events on campus, or book exciting Catholic speakers.

But those spots were filled, and to her surprise, Sr. Benedicta (who was not a religious sister at the time), was instead asked to teach three-to-six-year-olds about Jesus.

“Three-year-olds? I really don’t know about that,” Sr. Benedicta, now a Marian Sister in the Diocese of Lincoln, remembered thinking at the time.

Even though she was studying theology with a minor in education, three-year-olds seemed “very young” to her, and the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program she would be teaching seemed “very foreign.”

“But I really wanted to be on the ministry team so I thought, God works it all out in the end,” she said.

Fortunately for Sr. Benedicta, she fell in love with teaching Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and went on to be trained in two of its levels and to teach CGS for five years.

And her encounters with the young students — and watching their encounters with Jesus — shaped her as well.

“It really changed the way that I prayed,” she said.

Sr. Benedicta said something she loved about Catechesis of the Good Shepherd was what she learned by witnessing the special relationship between God and her students.

“I knew a lot about Jesus,” she said. “But there was something about when I went to the atrium, and I was talking with the children in the atrium. We would read the story of the Good Shepherd…and I would ask a couple of reflection questions, and hearing their responses, it moved something in me. I was like, I want a relationship with Jesus like that!”

The children in the atrium saw Jesus the Good Shepherd as their friend and protector; as someone willing to go out of his way to bring them back into his fold, Sr. Benedicta said.

“When they realize that they are the sheep, and Jesus is the good shepherd, this builds a very natural relationship of trust for them. And they see that he seeks out his lost sheep, and he calls them by name, and the sheep follow him,” she said. “And they respond with such joy and love…they're so innocent and pure, and they find joy in seeking out the Good Shepherd.”

This relationship inspired Sr. Benedicta in her own vocation. When she first began teaching CGS, she said she had a strong inclination that Jesus was calling her to religious life, but she was afraid of that call.

“I was pretty sure I was called to religious life, and I was really terrified. I thought it was going to be sad and lonely and boring. And I was like Jesus, there is no way that that is what you are calling me to,” she said.

Then one day, she was working in the atrium with a four-year-old boy, who was playing with Jesus and sheep figures after learning about the parable of the lost sheep. Sr. Benedicta asked the boy, “How did the Good Shepherd feel after he found his sheep?”

“And the kid said, ‘He is so happy. And he says, Will you come with me?’” Sr. Benedicta recalled. And while the child did not realize it, his words made a profound impact on her.

“I was so struck, because I was in this place where I thought Jesus was asking me to do something that I did not want to do, and that he was going to force me to do it. But when (Jesus) finds us, he asks, ‘Will you come with me?’” Sr. Benedicta said. She realized Jesus would not force her to join the convent, rather, he was inviting her out of love.

“It literally took the words of a child for me to realize that,” she said.

It was the nudge Sr. Benedicta needed to start asking God every day how he was calling her to say ‘yes’ to him, which eventually led her to join the convent.

Credit: The United States Association of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.

Official approval from the USCCB?

While the CGS program boasts widespread use in the United States, support from many bishops, and impactful stories about the atrium, the program is not on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s current list of approved catechetical materials - because of a technicality.

“We're not on the approved list of published textbook series, because we're not a published textbook series,” Mirrione said, “so we’ve never had the ability to go through that approval process.”

The materials used in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd are direct sources - Scripture, the Catechism, the Order of the Mass, and other ecclesial documents. The program itself is an entire method of catechesis, rather than a textbook series.

While CGS remains off the official list so far, since the 1990s, when the new Catechism of the Catholic Church was published, Mirrione has served as an advisor to the USCCB committee that oversees that approval process for catechesis textbooks. She has also advised on various aspects of the work of the Subcommittee on the Catechism.

“We (CGS) have 32 characteristics of our catechesis which guide us in knowing: are we living what we're called to live in this religious formation for children? And one of them is that we work in communion with the bishops. So we've always done that, and as a national association, that means our work with the USCCB, as well as the individual bishops around the country where the program is being implemented,” Mirrione said.

The CGS website also has multiple resources for anyone wondering how the CGS program aligns with the USCCB’s approach to catechesis, including explanations of the Church documents that the program uses in each level of CGS, and articles about the purpose of catechesis and CGS.

Last year, the Subcommittee on the Catechism - and its Institute on the Catechism - published a new Handbook on the Catechetical Accompaniment Process for catechetical materials that may not have previously qualified under the old process of approving textbooks.

The U.S. bishops have long cared about the quality of catechetical materials in the country, said Fr. Daniel Mahan, the director of the Institute on the Catechism and the Secretariat of Evangelization and Catechesis for the USCCB.

The new process is a continuation and expansion of their work to properly vet catechetical materials to ensure their teachings are in line with Catholic doctrine, he told The Pillar.

“The bishops…look at things from a vantage point that's higher up, and they noticed several things changing in the catechetical landscape,” Mahan said.

For one, he said, there are now far more publishers of catechetical materials. Where a few decades ago, there may have been five or six major publishers, there are now numerous new apostolates and publishers of catechetical books, websites and other materials. There are also materials being produced in multiple languages - largely Spanish, but also languages with other strong Catholic populations in the U.S., like Vietnamese.

Furthermore, there are a lot of materials being produced in non-textbook ways, like digital, online materials that largely did not exist in the 1990s, when the textbook approval process was made. Some regional publishers also produce material that is more tailored to a specific diocese or state.

There was also a realization among the bishops, Mahan said, that some of the older catechetical materials were not accomplishing what the bishops ultimately hope to accomplish through catechesis - that is, evangelization and a lifelong love of and faith in Jesus Christ.

“We still had the phenomenon of young people you know going through eight years or 12 years of Catholic school, and getting straight A’s in religion, and then they graduate and they never darken the door of the church again,” Mahan said. “And there was a realization that we needed to go deeper.”

Many of the catechetical programs that exist today have content that is in alignment with what the Catholic Church teaches, Mahan said, which is a step in the right direction. But this new process shows the bishops’ desire to review not only the academic content of programs, but “to make sure that we were paying attention to other aspects that were very, very important in the catechetical process…(such as) the inner life. What's going on in the heart? Is a student growing in knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus? Is there something stirring in the heart that is a result of the instruction that is being given?”

“It's spoken of in the Directory (for Catechesis) as a charismatic catechesis…that is, something that has the Kerygma, the basic proclamation of the Lord right there in full view every step of the way, one that presents the truth of the Faith in a systematic way, one that accompanies students as they strive to get to know the Lord,” Mahan added.

With this new process, consultants from the USCCB will work with publishers as materials are being developed, and will be able to make suggestions or provide feedback throughout their creation.

Mirrione, who helped edit the new handbook, said that CGS has already gone through several steps of the new approval process. While she said she did not know for certain if CGS would officially gain USCCB approval, or when that could happen, Mirrione said she is “thrilled that we have a way to work through the process, but also really delighted in the friendship that we have with those involved in the USCCB.”

The future of CGS

“We have seen incredible growth recently, and by recently, I mean within maybe the past 10 years,” Mirrione noted, adding that it has been “really interesting and a lot to keep up with.” She estimates there are about 7,000 atriums across the United States, though she said she does not have a definite way to track that.

What’s behind the growth? Mirrione believes it’s that the atrium offers children something that is radically different from what is offered by most of the rest of the world.

“Our world is changing, and where it is now, and what it offers to our children is very difficult and challenging,” she said. “And this space gives them a place for them to be with God in their own pace and rhythm.”

Mirrione said parents with children in CGS, or who would like to learn more about CGS, can listen to the podcasts that the association started producing about four or five years ago.

“That will give them different conversations about the religious life of their children. We also have parent pages now, we put them out to our organization members to be passed out in the parish, but certainly any parent can go to our website and download them, and we put out one per month,” she said.

She also said parents could read two books; “The Good Shepherd and the Child: A Joyful Journey” and “Life on the Vine: The Joyful Journey Continues.” While these books are part of their materials for catechists, Mirrione said, they were originally written for parents.

Sr. Benedicta said parents could also further what children are learning in the atrium by setting up a dedicated place for prayer in the home.

“It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, but a simple table with a cloth that is the liturgical color on it, a Bible, and like a statue or image of the Good Shepherd, especially because for younger kids, if they're praying a lot in the atrium, that's what they're familiar with,” she said.

“I think also praying as a family, praying regularly,” she said. “Not letting their prayer life be isolated to the atrium and Sunday Mass, but making it a normal part of their life. Because when we refer to Jesus as the Good Shepherd who cares about us, they're starting to realize that Jesus is their friend. We talk to our friends every day. We talk to the people that we're closest to every day.”

Mirrione said that CGS can be a helpful reminder for parents and all Catholics that we are all called to be like children in the Kingdom of God.

“In the Gospel, (Jesus) continues again and again to place the child before us and say, you want to enter my Kingdom? You need to be like this. And we have forgotten who they are and how precious they are and how wonderful they are,” she said.

“And if there's anything I want everyone to know, it's that he was not being poetic. He was being very serious that they are the most precious in the kingdom,” she added. “Montessori said that ‘He continues to send us children like rejuvenating rain on a dry, parched earth.’ And that's what he does. He continues to give us the gift of children… God and the child, they understand each other.”