News from Level 3 Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, St. Teresa

The Gatekeeper
Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Level III

October 20, 2009 - Level 3, Issue 02

In This Issue

The Peoples and the People of God

Continued Conversations - Cultures

The Miracles

Food for Parental Thought

Celebrating Mass Together

Presentation Schedule

Quick Links

St. Teresa of Avila Parish Site

Catechesis of the Good Shepherd

Dear CGS Level III Parent,

This marks our second week of Atrium, and we are off to a productive start. Last session, time really flew! The children enjoyed exploring the new space. They were very engaged in slowly discovering the Plan of God strip. And they were busy preparing their work folders and prayer journals for the upcoming year.

This week we will have separate presentations for first year children and returning children. The first years (generally 4th graders) will work with The Peoples and the People of God, a work which helps focus on the connections between various cultures that were important to the area of the world in which Jesus lived. The 2nd and 3rd year children will work with material that helps them learn about and reflect upon certain miracles performed by Jesus. Read the section below that is appropriate to your child.

Especially for parents of 2nd and 3rd year children, please read the Food for Parental Thought section below in order to connect with your child's catechetical experience. The presentation of miracles was specifically selected because the Gospel this coming Sunday (10/25) is the Gospel account of one of the four miracles included in the Level III presentation. Maybe you can mention this next Sunday to your child so they particularly open their ears to the Gospel message. But more importantly, the best way to connect with your Level III child is to, yourself, engage in similar meditations and works. This opens the door for natural continued conversations.

Peace,
The Level III catechist team:
Sarah Coles and Michael Sanem on Tuesdays
Lina Hilko and Bernadette Diaz on Thursdays

The Peoples and the People of God

Children in their first year of Level III will work with the first part of a presentation called The Peoples and the People of God. The Plan of God strip, which was presented last session, helps us identify and think about large groups of people who share a common location and traditions. We refer to these as "the Peoples," cultures such as the Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, etc. The Plan of God strip lifts up particular cultures of importance to the Jewish people. It does not have every important ancient culture, but rather is intended to help the child learn about the world into which Jesus came to live.

Each culture was born of small beginnings, rose to its greatest splendor, then declined and even disappeared. But the works of each People are handed off to another People forming inheritances that are never lost -horizontal bridges from People to People. The work called "The Peoples" helps children meditate on these concepts of time, a People's contributions, and horizontal bridges.

A second part of this work, "The People of God," helps children meditate in a special way on the Jewish People - the People of God - which are the people to which God chose to first reveal Himself as the One God. The heritage that the Jewish people continue to pass on to all peoples throughout the world is the knowledge that there is only one God. Children may not have time to work with this part of the presentation this year - we'll see.

We have a good collection of reference books (from the Eyewitness Books series) on ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans and on the various cultures of Mesopotamia. This initial presentation is just a door-opener to further, self-driven inquiry into cultures and their contributions to history.

Continued Conversations - Cultures

From time to time, these newsletters will have articles suggesting ways the parent can extend support to their child's work in catechesis. The articles for Level III are entitled "Continued Conversations" because a key way your Level III child works through information and concepts is through conversation.

A way for Level III families to extend the catechetical experience, especially for children who have worked with and are interested in the Peoples material, is to visit the Field Museum's permanent exhibit entitled The Ancient Americas. This is an excellent exhibit tracing the creation of cultures from tiny beginnings to enormous empires. The cultures are quite different from those on the Plan of God strip because the Americas were not the area into which Jesus was born. However, the concepts of development are intimately related.

If you have already visited this exhibit, consider opening a conversation with your child comparing the exhibit to their work in Atrium the last two sessions. You can open by saying, "I was reading about ... in the catechesis newsletter, and it reminded me of ...." Does your child recall any knowledge handed down form one group to another, such as the horizontal bridges we reflect upon in the Plan of God strip. Does your child recall any knowledge or invention that we use today, even though the people who first invented it didn't even know they were working for us?

The Miracles

The 2nd and 3rd year children will work with materials to help them learn about and reflect on certain miracles performed by Jesus. Miracles are not presented generally to children until Level III because the risk exists for younger children to receive such accounts as magic. The presentation in Level III is very rich and multi-faceted because Level III children are ready and hungry to penetrate more deeply into the mystery of the Kingdom of God.

When Jesus lived on Earth - when he walked and talked and breathed just like you and I - people often asked him about the Kingdom of God. What is it like? Jesus spoke to people about the Kingdom of God using parables. And children in all Levels have heard this introduction time and again and have listened to and meditated on various parables.

Jesus also performed certain acts which allowed people, and allow us today, to see what the kingdom is like and will be like at the parousia, the time when God will be all in all. We call these acts "miracles."

The method of presenting miracles to Level III children places these acts firmly within the entire Plan of God. Not only does the child read the act from Scripture and contemplate the act performed by Jesus in that time and that setting, but the work then helps the child

(1) connect back to how the miracle relates to the words of prophets when they described the fulfillment of God's plan;
(2) contemplate how the miracle still works in and around us today through liturgy and the sacraments; and
(3) envision one aspect of parousia as glimpsed through the work of the miracle.

I only experienced this presentation myself for the first time this summer. And it truly has changed how I perceive and think about the miracles. It never occurred to me, and no one ever suggested to me, to think of the miracles as providing a glimpse of parousia. Perhaps you might try this perspective going forward as well. Please read "Food for Parental Thought" below for a chance to continue your meditation this week.

Food for Parental Thought

The Miracles presentation was selected specifically because this coming Sunday (10/25) the Gospel is the account of one of the four miracles in this work. In Mark 10:46-52, we can read of Jesus' restoring sight to Bartimaeus. The final excerpt reads like this:

Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?"
The blind man replied to him, "Master, I want to see."
Jesus told him, "Go your way; your faith has saved you."
Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

Can you imagine the joy of Bartimaeus who for the first time sees light, sees all the wonders of creation? How could this healing happen? Have the prophets said something about this? We read in Isaiah 35:5:

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared.

When will this "then" be? The prophet is speaking of the day that all history is moving toward: the parousia. "Then" there will be no more illness, or death, or suffering.

And what about us today? What is Bartimaeus' response? It says, "he received his sight and followed him on the way." So, Bartimaeus' response is to follow Jesus. Do we experience something similar to what happened to Bartimaeus when we read the Bible? Aren't our eyes slowly opened, enabling us to really see Jesus and the wonders of God's creation? Have you personally ever experienced a moment, perhaps in mass, when the Word of God was broken open, and you saw something that you hadn't seen before? Did you feel great joy? I see!

Celebrating Mass Together

[This article is repeated in all three Levels of newsletters.] One of the most important ways we grow in relationship with God is through the celebration of mass. So, we seek to organize opportunities for families (children and parents) in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to come together as a small, intimate community to celebrate mass once or twice a year. Such a mass will be held on Thursday, November 19th in the final half of our Atrium time. Families whose children attend Atrium on days other than Thursday are invited to come to Thursday Atrium that week in order to also enjoy mass. If you cannot come on Thursday, then please continue to attend on your regular Atrium day as Catechesis will meet each of the regular days that week. Stay tuned for more details, but please make note of this special mass now.

Presentation Schedule

Please feel free to talk to Lina Hilko (LHilko@aol.com) or Sarah Coles (secoles@gmail.com) with your questions, comments or concerns about Level III or this e-newsletter.

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