This month, the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS), a method of teaching catechesis to young students inspired by Montessori education, celebrates its 70th anniversary and its 40th anniversary as an official organization in the United States.

Founded by Sofia Cavalletti and inspired by the educational style of Catholic educator Maria Montessori, CGS teaches toddlers through 12-year-olds by addressing the child’s developmental age and placing a strong focus on the child’s relationship with God.

The emerging organization CGSUSA has grown since its founding in the USA in 1984. Expanding to Orthodox Christians, Episcopalians, and other Christian churches that seek to teach children about God in thoughtful, creative, and relational ways.

There are more than 6,500 “atriums,” or classrooms designed to meet the child’s developmental needs, in the United States, with three headquarters in Arizona, Georgia and Iowa.

CGSUSA has 4,700 active members from 21 different Christian traditions. Members and catechists minister to an estimated 75,000 children.

Small rooms for the little ones

CGS rooms are tailored to the needs of each age group, whether it is 16 to 30 months old, 3 to 6 year olds, 6 to 9 year olds or 9 to 12 year olds.

“The Good Shepherd Catechesis offers the child a place and time to be with God,” said Mary Mirrione, national director of CGSUSA.

“We invest a lot of time and care in the training of the catechist, the adults who are with the children in this room,” she told CNA in a Zoom call. “But this room is prepared so that everything in the room points to God and is a doorway to the mystery of God through which the child can enter.”

The rooms are equipped with child-friendly furniture, depending on the age group the classroom is intended for. Artwork is displayed at child height and bookshelves are easily accessible. Religiously-focused activities are available for the children, such as tactile liturgical calendars, maps of the Holy Land and a liturgy area with a mini altar.

“We have a nice little collection of everything they see at the fair and we help them with the names because as they learn to speak they are fascinated by names,” she explained.

CGS focuses on a different aspect of God through different classroom activities and decorations as well as parables depending on the child’s age.

The name of the classrooms, “atriums” (“atrium” for a single classroom), is derived from the space between the church and the outside world.

Catechists place more emphasis on the child’s relationship with God than on mere factual learning and emphasize parables such as the good shepherd and the prodigal son.

“It’s not a subject, it’s a person,” Mirrione said. “They’re not acquiring knowledge, they’re enjoying a relationship – and of course, in the process of enjoying it, they’re acquiring knowledge.”

“Because they are His children by nature and are filled by their baptism, (the children) have a relationship with God that is between them and God,” she said. “The only people allowed into their soul are them and God. The rest of us can serve that, and we can serve that well, but we have to see who they are in order to do that.”

Founding and growth

Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi founded CGS in Rome, drawing inspiration from the Church and Montessori pedagogy.

Cavalletti, a biblical scholar and theologian, was asked by a friend to catechize her young children. Although she initially said she knew nothing about children, Cavalletti was drawn to their unique perspectives. Inspired by the rabbinic way of reading Scripture she was used to, she teamed up with Montessori educator Gobbi and developed CGS.

“They started an experiment, a Montessori experiment, in a prepared environment,” Mirrione said.

They decided to call the classroom the Atrium, named after the space between the world and the church.

“In St. Peter’s Basilica, there’s this room there and these huge golden doors with the life of Christ on them – that’s the atrium,” she explained. “In St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, there’s a huge atrium there for the catechumenate, because that’s where the catechumenates learned about the faith, and that was the space in between.”

The organization grew and Pope John Paul II made a pastoral visit to a CGS group at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Italy on February 13, 1983, while the children were working with the catechists.

“He approached each group and listened carefully, then asked a question and then listened again, amazed and touched by the children’s responses,” Mirrione said in an email to CNA. “At the end of his visit, he told Sofia and the catechists from the atrium that he had never heard such a good homily and that this was proof that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children.”

Adaptation to special needs

CGS can be ideal for children with special needs, particularly those with autism spectrum disorder or Down syndrome. Catechists enjoy working with families.

“Because it’s a prepared environment, we can make certain preparations. For example, we’ve had children who are deaf or blind,” she said. “We have many children with autism spectrum disorder and many children with Down syndrome.”

Giving children the freedom to move at their own pace, already a tenet of CGS, can be especially helpful for children with special needs, Mirrione explained.

“With children with autism spectrum disorder, sometimes it can be as simple as turning off the overhead lights because we have lamps and the room is softly lit. Sometimes it’s that simple, and sometimes it’s really just about giving them the space and time they need.”

Mirrione recalled a young student who could not speak who came to CGS classes with a respite aide. Although she didn’t know what to expect at first, she found that the two worked well together.

“He eventually became our prayer leader because I think he had an innate sense of time,” she recalled. “He always knew when it was almost time for the closing prayer and would walk from the prayer table to the other side of the room.”

The student sings one word of the song, “always,” and the other children gather around the prayer table, join in, and sing, “The Lord is my shepherd, I will always go with him.”

“We sang the rest of the song with him because he could sing a word of it, and he led the song every week,” she said.

growth

This year, CGSUSA celebrates 40 years as an association and 70 years of CGS with nearly 5,000 active members who help operate or support CGS locations across the country. The organization certifies more than 2,200 catechists each year, and catechists contribute an estimated 20,000 total hours of volunteer time each month.

“It just took us a while to become a club because we are still small. We have always been small,” explained Mirrione. “But this year we are celebrating too, and I am delighted that we have almost 5,000 members.”

Mirrione has led the organization for more than 27 years and has been involved in catechesis since the early 1990s.

She explained that she began attending CGS classes at the request of her pastor and then felt a personal connection to it.

“But when I went through the course from day one and was called by name to this wonderful place that is like a children’s convalescent home, it really caught my attention and my heart,” she recalls. “The gospel is being proclaimed in such a fundamental way.”

“We say that our foundations are Sacred Scripture, the liturgy and the child, the human person before us,” she continued. “And that is really profound in its simplicity.”

“For example, one of the children’s favorite parables is: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed: it is tiny when sown, but it grows so large that the birds seek protection from it when they hunt,” she explained.

“Jesus spoke of Jerusalem mustard seeds. I think unless you see them, you don’t know how tiny they are – they are so tiny! And when you walk through Bethany, you bite into them. That must have been so present to the people of his time.”