Mystery of Life and Death

The catechists are very happy this week that we have finally found someone to help us prepare the work called "The Mystery of Life and Death." It requires planting wheat seeds at 1 week intervals and showing the progression of the life/death of a seed and the new life that comes from it. Unfortunately, many of your CGS catechists are not blessed with green thumbs, but Ms. Lynn happened to major in horticulture and apparently that is what we needed!

The meditation began with this reading from the Gospel of John:

"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." John 12:24

We then explored with the children what happened to the grain of wheat when it fell to the ground: it changed! Life came out of it! It was fun digging up a plant to see what has happened to the seed. Looking at the sheath of wheat, we see what has become of this grain falling to the ground--although some of them thought it was a bit of a stretch to call the full sheath of grain "fruit"!

We did this work in both levels this week (since it's the first time any of the children ever saw it!) and some children were absolutely rapt with attention. One child wrote a prayer, "O dear Jesus, help me not to stay small like the grain, but to grow and grow and grow!" Another child synthesized our "Blue Strip" work that details the History of the Kingdom of God and drew a picture with concentric circles, starting very small and growing larger and larger. He said that the center circle was the Resurrection of Christ, and that it keeps radiating out--growing and growing throughout history. When he showed this to his classmates at prayer that evening, one child raised her hand and said, "That is the most amazing thing I've ever seen."

Speaking of amazing, there was one other Level II work that two children did that I want to share with you this week. Two boys, a 3rd grader and a 1st grader, who do not usually work together, took on the HUGE project of copying the entire Blue Strip. This is a meditation on the creation of the world, with scientific explanations paired with scriptural verses. One child took it upon himself to start drawing the strip on a 10-15 foot strip of adding paper, supplementing it with verses, and the other began to write the bottom explanations on white paper, stapling them in their appropriate place on the adding paper. It is by far the BIGGEST work any children have done so far, and it was entirely on their own initiative.

As one of our catechists said, the prepared environment of the atrium is a place where work is prepared and the child may use it to the glory of God. This catechist said that CGS has helped her to appreciate how God made a prepared environment for us: the world! There is work for us to do, and it will (hopefully!) lead us to Him.

May God bless you and your families! Have a happy Spring Break!!!

Mandie DeVries
CGS Catechist & Director of Faith Formation