The New, Older Child

Because Catechesis of the Good Shepherd begins at such a young age, (which is 3 years old for the majority of our parish children and even younger for our volunteers' children), it is not uncommon for new children to join in 3 or more years after their atrium-mates have been in formation. Many times, the new children look around and see the others hard at work and prayer and simply follow suit. Sometimes, though, especially for older children, there is more of a struggle. So how can we help to prepare the older child for this method of formation? I'll give three ideas for parents and catechists that I hope will help make this a beautiful experience for all!

Parents:

1. Learn all you can about this new program that your children are joining. The Missionaries of Charity and the Nashville Dominicans both use CGS in their schools and the formation of their sisters(!) Your child's catechist has been preparing for years to work with your older child. www.cgsusa.org is a great resource and so is our parish CGS blog: allsaintscgs.blogspot.com.
2. Encourage your child to be an active participant. This work is very individualized, and your child will receive short presentations each week, but the majority of his or her time will be self-directed work in a prepared environment. After receiving presentations, some children choose to dive in to biblical geography. Others spend time making their own missal. Others take on the big work of memorizing all of the books of the Bible. Others do a little bit of everything. The atrium is full of things to do. Your child may need encouragement to "get active" in their formation.
3. Talk to your child's catechist or your parish director of religious education early and often. You are always welcome to come and observe in your child's atrium. We like to give the children a heads up that we are having a visitor, so a week's notice is great. You may decide you want to jump in and get involved. Our community of catechists is growing each year because of parents who fall in love.

Catechists:

1. Get to know each child in your atrium and make sure to meet the parents, too! The more you know about each child (especially the older, new child), the better you will be able to follow that child and determine what he or she needs.
2. Don't forget the Good Shepherd! The older child may need the Good Shepherd and other primary works presented to them in a different way (less moving of the 2D figures), but they still need to have the proclamation (kerygma) which is the foundation and hallmark of our work in order before moving into moral formation (parenesis) or synthesis work. You must be sure that the child has had time to enjoy the covenant relationship with Jesus first!
3. Observe carefully! A quiet child is not necessarily a happy child. Think carefully about who you might "match" this older child up with as a work partner. The second plane (6-12 year old) child is a social child who is learning how to live his faith and his life in community. You know that there is so much you want to pass on to this child, but take it slow and always follow the child!

Catechists and Parents: Take heart! We have had so many beautiful experiences with the older child who comes in new to CGS. Two of these children had work that was published in the same CGS Journal 6 years ago (back when we were rookies). The Holy Spirit moves, even when we are unsure. Trust that!

God's Blessing on you and your families, this week and always!

A Treasure Hidden in a Yellow House

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." Matt 13:44.

I've wrestled with this parable for years now, and I've always been a little confounded by what it means. Why did the man hide the treasure again? How did he find it? Was he trespassing? I was certain I was missing something. Only in the last few days do I think may finally be starting to understand what this hidden treasure is all about.

My grandmother's funeral was last Saturday. Veronica Jane Koebel was 91 years old and up to a couple of weeks ago she was still attending Sunday Mass and living on her own. She never drove a car. Check that. I think she tried to drive one once, and decided quickly that driving wasn't going to be a thing she did. She was content to be driven around in a very memorable station wagon by her husband of nearly 50 years until 1995 when he died. Three of her nine children lived within 3-20 minutes away, but still, she always said she'd rather just be home. She lived hidden in that same big old yellow house (which is now tan, but my memory refuses to believe it) for my whole life.

I realized that as a person who has moved 26 times in my life, she was perhaps the only constant I could rely on.  I could always imagine her watching EWTN or Danny O'Donnell. I could picture her by her computer typing up emails in large font, or watching her screensaver slide show of family pictures. Or else she was at the sink, washing dishes by hand. Because she was always there. She said it was her "fun."

I was blessed to have a final day after they discovered the cancer and just days before she died. During that most amazing day with Grandma, she talked the ear off of anyone who would listen. When we fed her ice chips, which is all she could take in, she said, "You think this is going to shut me up, but it won't." Knowing that she'd worry about our long drive home, we tried to head out while it was still light. I leaned in to say goodbye and tell her it was so good to see her. She said she was glad she could see me, too. "Thank God my eyes still work." She also told me not to feel like I had to go and draw out the goodbye to everyone. I should do like my cousin's son who just went to the door, turned around to everyone and said, "So long, everybody!"

I went to the hallway and cried through my laughter as I hugged my cousin and aunt. The woman was not afraid to die. She was saying goodbye with such dignity and poise. Every silly story about grandmas on motorcycles that she was telling was just a chance to hold on to someone's gaze and someone's hand.

At her wake, the priest spoke of her death in the most amazing terms. Following those few extraordinary days with her family, she started sleeping more. Surrounded by her favorite images our Our Lord, she held on to her rosary and slipped away almost stealthily. She was so peaceful. My 6-year old daughter Lucy said to me, "When I die, I want to die happy, like Great Grandma."

Grandma was a simple woman. She worried about her family, but she left the big job of doing something about it to God. She lived an ordinary life, hidden away from most of the world, just loving her family (which numbered over 100 of us: children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and spouses) and holding us together in her heart. If she suffered, she hid it.

Her sanctity was so everyday. It was hidden in the dishes and in the lawn mowing (which she did up into her 80s). It was the rosary hidden in her pocket. It was never in a voice that said, "Look at me!" (Although she did like a good audience for her stories!) It was even hidden in her passage to the Kingdom that was so gentle that we were convinced it must not have been much of a change for her. A hidden treasure in her home and family, she was already living the Kingdom. Now she just lives it in a new way.

The Great Trampoline

It seem like bedtime is the perfect time for children to come up with pressing and dire concerns or questions that simply cannot wait until morning. The other day after the lights were out upstairs and my husband and I thought we were officially in kid-free zone, a child appeared at the bottom of the stairs to request a trampoline for her birthday, promising that she would use it every single day if we could just buy her one. This request was met only with the infamous parental finger pointing up to the room where she could go and dream about a trampoline.

The other night, however, one of my daughters came to me after bedtime with a much different problem. Deeply distraught, she gave a painful cry to her mother's heart: "Prayer isn't working."

As I prodded her a bit, asking what brought on this despair, she confided that she had been asking God to help her get rid of some fault, but she is still failing and falling all the time. She wants to be good, she wants to be better at loving others, but she isn't getting better. God isn't answering her prayer.

"Amen, sister," I thought, "that's the universal experience of trying to be a better person, isn't it?"

I consoled her that her apparent faults are not a sign that she is failing God. God seems to like to perfect our humility before He perfects our other virtues. If it is always easy to be good or kind or generous or gentle, we may think that the power to do these things comes from us. Luckily, God can even use our falls to bring us higher and closer to Him... so long as we choose humility as our response, rather than despair. If we are perfect in every other virtue but full of pride, all is lost. The reverse however, is not true! Even if we fail in every virtue except for trust and humility, God can still work with us, because our hearts are His.

The great secret to humility is that this "little" virtue can do more to defeat the devil than any other act. The primordial sin really is: "I can do it without you, God." If you can rid your heart of that lie, you've done quite a lot.

It is a fact: we're going to fall. We're going to sin. Sometimes it is on purpose, and sometimes it is an accident. But we should take heart: God isn't surprised. It is not always easy to follow the voice of the Good Shepherd. He knows what we are made of and He has told us how He responds to the sheep who says, "I will not follow." (Luke 15:1-7). He does not leave us, but draws closer and brings us home on His shoulders.

In his amazing book, Searching for and Maintaining Peace, Fr. Jacques Phillipe teaches that humility is like a springboard, a trampoline. It makes even our falls a benefit to us, because with it we can rebound to an even higher level.

The knowledge that God loves me even when I fall doesn't make me a more brazen sinner, it makes me a better jumper, and getting up from our falls more quickly is what gives us the strength and power to acquire all of the other virtues besides. I am the servant of a God who is greater than I can even imagine, because He loves me even when I find it hard to love myself.

This great trampoline is our original birthday gift. Let's use it. Every day.

Be Good

If I asked you what moral formation is, what would you say? Usually when I ask this question, people respond very quickly: "Learning right from wrong."

But really, if we look at moral formation this way, we are missing some of the most important aspects of human development and what being a moral person really is. Just choosing right over wrong is not a sign that a person is a good person. For example: the Pharisees were champions at following the rules but Jesus didn't have very nice things to say about them.

Usually, the admonition to "be good" has a not very subtle "or else" stuck to the back of it. If we are honest, we might admit that our mental image of God looks more like the tattle tale who nobody liked in third grade who kept meticulous record of our mess-ups, than of the loving Good Shepherd that Jesus tells us he is. So what gives?

In her book, The Religious Potential of the Child, Sofia Cavalletti quotes Father Dalmazio Mongillo who warned that we must be careful not to think of our good actions like we think about ornaments on a Christmas tree. As pretty as the ornaments are, they are still dead (and so is the tree). Rather, we should consider our moral actions as the fruit on a tree. If the tree or plant is healthily rooted in the ground, fruit will come. Just as it would be absurd to focus on the lack or plethora of fruit in a plant that is uprooted, we must look at our healthy relationship with God as the source of our action. 

My college pastor at St. Stephen the Witness at the University of Northern Iowa, Father John Haugen, always told us that our sins were like idiot lights on the dashboard. They are warning signs that something is wrong under the hood. Unscrewing the light bulb for the "service engine soon" light will not solve the problem.

When we see our children (or ourselves) struggling to follow the voice of the Good Shepherd, it may be a better course of action to work at rebuilding the relationship, not just focusing on nipping the bad behavior in the bud. How is my prayer life? Do I read the scriptures? Do I believe that God loves me, no matter what? When is the last time I went to confession and received Communion?

Sheep stray. It isn't a big surprise when sin pops into our child's life. We must have confidence in the love of the Good Shepherd who, as Pope Francis says, never tires of lifting us up on his shoulders and bringing us back home. As parents we must do all we can to imitate the patience of the Shepherd. If we make it our focus to bring their hearts home to Him, the fruit of good action will come.