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The Infant & Toddler Atrium
The Youngest Children
Infant-Toddler Catechesis is an exploration of the very youngest child’s spirituality springing from the discovery of the child’s nature and religious potential revealed by the children to Maria Montessori, Sofia Cavalletti, Gianna Gobbi, Silvana Montanaro and those who continue to listen and observe the child in God’s light. When Rebekah Rojcewicz interviewed Sofia Cavalletti for her article in Essential Realities, she asked Sofia what was her greatest hope for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Sofia responded, “…that it would go younger and younger…” She said this out of a long process of observation of the children.
At the International 60th Anniversary Celebration of CGS in 2014, a plenary talk and breakout sessions on the child from birth to three years were offered. An international group has been working on an initial Infant-Toddler study course that is offered in two parts. The course includes the environments of the womb and the home, the preparation of the adult, the sacraments of Marriage and Baptism, Montessori theory and pedagogy of the youngest child and a most essential pondering and experimentation of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd with children under the age of three.
Already we know that the atrium is the place where the mystery of God meets the mystery of the child – could we not say that it is the place they meet again? For we must ask, was there ever a time when the Creator was not in love with His creature and the creature was not touched by His love, sustained and formed by it, called into being love himself? Who is this child who floods her mother’s womb with warmth at Christ’s very name?
You formed my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. Psalm 139:13
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. Luke 1:41
I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named…that you, being rooted and grounded in love…may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14, 17b, 19b
The child has a different relationship to the environment…he absorbs it. The things he sees are not just remembered, they form part of his soul. The Absorbent Mind, Maria Montessori
Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. Luke 2:19
To “enter into the secret of childhood” requires of us, as adults, both a willing spirit and a particular discipline. Listening to God With Children, Gianna Gobbi