From Feast to Feast!

This Advent, we've had two special feast days land on Wednesdays, and the children in our CGS program have been quite busy celebrating them.

Since our parish claims "All the Saints" for our patrons, children don't just zero in on one saint to study and celebrate. Our Level III children will often research a saint in their work time and paint an icon (which adorn our wall downstairs!)


This year, Catholic Charities had a #belikestnick drive for their Emergency Family Shelter. So, on St. Nicholas' Feast Day (12/6), we invited a parishioner to come and bring his big red bag for the CHILDREN to fill with items that would help people in need. (One of the children was sure that the man behind the beard was Father Harris!) Side note: The workers at the Emergency Family Shelter recognized our parish because there is a parish group that has been preparing a Sunday meal for the families there once a month for many, many years. We were happy to help in a new way!

And on December 13th, a very ambitious group of 4th-6th graders have planned a feast day celebration for St. Lucy! Traditions for celebrating this martyr's feast day (which involved candles, star boys, and sweet rolls) captivated them. So they wrote a play and invited Father Harris and the other children in their 4pm session to come and celebrate Mass and a feast!

And this is not to mention preparations for Christmas!! Truly, we are a Holy Day people. Our whole liturgical year is a journey from feast to feast. It is beautiful watching the children embrace this rhythm of life that celebrates our communion with the saints in God!

Prepare Ye

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great Light" Isaiah 9:2.

This week, many of our Level I children as young as three years old heard these words spoken eight centuries before Jesus Christ was born. God is preparing His people for a gift, we tell them, and through the prophets, God tells us for what and whom, and even where, we should look.

A light. A star. A ruler. A son. Born of a Virgin. Emmanuel: God with us. Bethlehem. A child with authority. Wonder Counselor. God-Hero. Father-Forever. Price of Peace.

All of these things the prophets foretold. As we prepare these children to celebrate the mystery of Christmas, all of these signs point to that child who lays there in a feed box for animals. It's an incredible paradox: King of the world. Foretold for centuries. Heralded by angels. Lying in a manger?

It's all there, just like the prophets said, but it isn't quite as we might expect it. Good thing God pointed the way for all those years, or we might have missed it!

As the children grow, we offer further reflections on the Messiah "who is to come" from the prophets. In Level II (for 1st-3rd grades) and Level III (4th-6th) we hear about the incredible peace that will flood the earth. The wolf will lay down with the lamb. The young lion and the calf shall browse with the young child to lead them. No harm or ruin on all my holy mountain. The earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea. There will be no mourning or wailing. Death will be destroyed forever.

Is this what we see on Christmas? Even the most stubborn optimist would have to admit it is not. Jesus is the Savior, and He did come to establish His kingdom. Yet we wait for the day when "everything is subjected to him" and "God will be all in all" 1 Cor 15:28.

With the children, we reflect deeply on the prophets' words because they have relevance for us today. The prophets had a call, a vocation, to listen deeply to the word of God--to encounter Him in their own hearts. From the depths of this relationship of listening, the prophet speaks God's message. It is not just to the people of their time, but of our time as well. Their words not only prepare us to recognize and accept Jesus Christ who is born on Christmas morning as the Messiah foretold, but to look and prepare carefully for the Parousia: that time in which God will be all in all.

Making Time, Making Space

In CGS we often quote the beautiful response of the Missionaries of Charity when they were asked why they chose to implement CGS in their homes and in the formation of their sisters.

"Because of the element of contemplation."

But what does that mean? Do we ring a bell and let the children know that it's time for contemplation now? Do we have the children sit criss-cross on the floor with our eyes closed in silence for 30 minutes?  No. Neither of these things.

Contemplation is a depth of prayer that is really a gift. You can't schedule it. You can't force it. But you do need to make room for it.

In the atrium, we offer the child the core truths of the Christian Proclamation (the kerygma) as content worthy of reflection and we give them free work time in order to go deeper. "We offer rich food," Sofia Cavalletti says, "but not too much of it." Then, as much as 75% of the child's time in the atrium is his or her own. With this gift of time and a prepared environment, the child can choose to work with any material he has seen, find extensions work that is related, or (in the older years) research.

Sometimes it will happen that a whole atrium will fall into a concentrated silence, and the catechists look at each other and sit down carefully and quietly so as not to break it! Other times, the children seem to "take turns" at being absorbed in thought, while others give the catechists a run for their money.

Then there are the days like last Tuesday. Two little girls in a Level II atrium decided to work together to make a prayer book for the atrium. One of two catechists in the room (both male) came and shared the girls' work with me at the end of the session. We stood in awe. We could never make something like this happen. We can only make space for it.

 "The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want. He stays with me wherever I go. If I get lost he shall leave the others and go to find me. He takes me to green pastures which I have my fill. I listen to his call I follow him because I know his voice. If another shall come I do not follow for his voice is not familiar.

"Lord I love you. I pray for those who don't. I love you I serve you. I give up my life for you. You are my Lord my God and my savior. You are The God That Makes Miracles you are the God that made the world. You are the God that made me.

"God I thank you. You gave us Jesus Mary the Saints and all the angels. You created them for me. To help me understand you. I thank you for my friends my family. For my relatives and most of all my life. I thank you Lord!"

"When you get a moment, without hesitating lower to your knees, fold your hands, lift up your eyes to heaven. Tell God inner worries, cares, faults, doubts, pain, catastrophes and ruckuses. In some ways God is like a candle extinguisher. The candle is all your inner worries, cares, faults, doubts, pain, catastrophes, and ruckuses. God's love easily put out the evil flame. So when you feel evil in you, take a calm moment and talk to God!"