Three months of catechism

by Renato Rosso

Translated by Paola Quazzo

INTRODUCTION

“Research community”, “catechism” and “catechistic research community” are mentioned in Chapter II. We must specify that it is incorrect to apply the term “catechism” to the present text because this term generally refers to a handbook containing a series of explanations, together with questions and answers planned by others, that run the risk of exempting the catechumen from thinking.

Here questions are posed, then other questions are added, and finally apt conclusions to the level of the search are drawn. The catechism is the result of two thousand years of analysis, study, controversy and conclusions.

Presenting this methodology, which follows the “Philosophy for children” born in the 1970s, we aim at posing questions that raise other questions and answers in a process which will guide the child through critical analyses. This process will lead to clarifications, which will not be necessarily final, definite or dogmatic, but certainly they will not be confused, since they are part of a process that is child-centred.

Let’s take the question: “Why isn’t God visible?”. Children give answers and ask other questions, then analyze visible real objects and make hypotheses: God is not finite like a house. Another question propelled by their analysis could be: “How can I see Him if He is infinite? If He is infinite, we can’t see Him”. If an answer is given, it is ‘sufficiently acceptable’, because there are still grey areas.

Vincent still has doubts: who is never draws conclusions quickly but without much depth. This process of analysis will be resumed when the children are older and their critical skills work at a more complex level.

Therefore, not a question-answer model is presented here, but a pattern of questions-analysis-answers, together with more questions, in order to train children to think and draw their own conclusions.

In the catechistic research community there is an element that goes beyond the analysis of the “Philosophy for children”: it is the Revelation. While philosophy is limited to making children’s brains think and tries to lead children to new conclusions with creative elaborations, catechesis offers answers that the human thought cannot reach on its own.

For instance, the expression: “Jesus is the Son of God” is not a conclusion that the philosophical thought can attain, but it is a theological elaboration descending from a Revelation. This aspect is to be taken into account in order not to consider the Revelation as an humiliation of rational thinking, but a completion coming from the Author of every thought.

Renato Rosso

Chapter 1

Josy: “This morning I went to the Christian lesson. Actually, I wasn’t sure about what it was.”

Andrew interrupts: “Do you know now?”

“A bit more than yesterday. I had been told it was a school lesson, but nicer.”

“Was it so?”

“Yes, I think so. If you want you can ask your mum for permission and we can go together.”

Andrew: “I’ll think about it. Maybe I’ll come.”

Adelia, after leaving her jigsaw, intervenes: “What did you do in that nice school lesson?”

I say: “I’m not going to tell you! You can come too, if you want. It’s impossible to describe it. You’ll hear only my version. What about the other 26 children’s version? and the catechist’s? How can I describe when we sang holding our hands?

Mark asks: “Did the catechist tell you about Jesus?”

Josy: “She said she would talk about him a lot this year.”

Mark again: “Did she tell you about God?”. I say: “Angela asked who God is, but the catechist asked us if we knew something about Him. No-one answered, so she said we would talk about it this year. We can’t say everything on the first day, she said. Then I added: ‘When we prayed this morning you told us that we talk to God when we pray, but how can we talk to Him if we can’t see Him?’”

Vincent: “Why can’t we see God? We never pray at home and I’m not sure He really exists.”

The catechist had asked: “Are there things that exists but are not visible?”

Frances raises her hand: “Yes, the wind!”

And Vincent: “I know that the stars are still there during the day, but we can’t see them because of the sunlight.”

Eddie: “Our heart too. We can’t see it but we can hear it. When I run, I hear it.”

Frances: “Our brains too. We can’t see them, but I think we all have them, though my teacher told me I am brainless.” We all laugh.

Then I say: “I am sure God exists.”

And Vincent asks me again: “How do you know?”. I can’t find an answer.

Chapter 2

Andrew, Adelia and Mark, who are my friends and live around my same courtyard, have come to the Sunday school. My mum phoned the catechist to know if they could come. So we are 29 in class now.

We introduced ourselves. I said I was a painter, then I corrected myself and said I drew a lot. The catechist said her name had been Rina, but then she changed it and now she is Maria, which is the name of Jesus’ mother.

Adelia asked if it was possible to change her name and also asked me if I wanted to change mine. I replied I had to think about it. I could change it for a while and then be Josy again. Miss Maria told us that our names come from great saints, who were very close friends of Jesus. These saints are our guardians and we try to be like them: to be as close to Jesus as they were.

Then Miss Mary answered Eddie’s question and explained what it meant that the saints are our guardians and she also spoke about how we can become friends of Jesus.

Then I asked: “Who is my saint?”

“It’s not a woman – she said – but a man, and he is the greatest saint after Mary. Josy is the short form of Josephine, which comes from Joseph. Joseph was a great saint who acted as Jesus’ father.”

Andrew asked: “Why did you say he acted as Jesus’ father? You mean Jesus’ father was someone else?”

Mark asks: “Who was Jesus’ father then?”

Miss Mary is silent, waits for some seconds, maybe to show them that the answer is very important. “The father of Jesus is God, and his mother is Mary. God asked Joseph to raise the child as if he were his son.”

After a while Andrew comments: “No wonder Jesus is so important! His father is God!”

Alan says: “My dad is only a farmer!”

Miss Mary says: “My dad was a baker.”

Adelia, Mark, Andrew and I say that our fathers are farmers, like Alan’s. Then we find out that Charles’s father is a mechanic, Frances’s dad is a butcher, Martin’s is the bus driver who picks us up after school. Then Frances says: “Jesus had a very important father but he ended up by being a carpenter!”

“No –Charles says – I saw pictures of Jesus with sheep and lambs, so he was a shepherd”.

Miss Mary intervenes and puts off the discussion by telling us to ask our mum and dad if Jesus was a carpenter or a shepherd.

Chapter 3

Today we’ve come to lesson with our answers, or rather our answer, but Miss Mary, who always surprises us, had prepared something else for us, so she put off our answers (I think Miss Mary is more interested in questions than answers).

There was a big Christmas tree on a small table and Charles immediately said: “But today’s not Christmas!”, and Miss Mary: “You’re right, but you all know what a Christmas tree is!”

“Of course, it’s a tree –Mark says – with lots of small gifts attached to its branches and big gifts underneath.”

Frances: “It’s a tree with lots of lights and I say it’s a tree mum and dad make for their children.” Little by little all the children say, in their own words, that it is a tree with gifts...presents...

“Right –Miss Mary says – the tree you see here is a Christmas tree with gifts that God, Jesus’father and His Son, gave us or wish to give us.”

There are lots of small colourful packets hanging from the branches, then there are about twenty bigger packets and nine big parcels colourfully wrapped.

Frances asks: “What’s inside the small packets?”

“There are the names of the gifts.”

And Alan: “When will He give them to us?”

Mark: “We want real gifts, not just names.”

Yes, we all shout: “We want real gifts!”

Miss Mary smiles and says: “These are the names of real gifts that you already have. But you mightn’t have seen them or you may not have paid much attention to them; maybe you’ve already forgotten them.

“Let’s start with the small gifts. I’ll give you one each. I’ll call you by name, you’ll open them and read the words.”

Andrew opens one and reads: “Rivers.”

Miss Mary adds: “What’s inside the rivers?”

Adelia: “Water.”

“Isn’t it important? If rivers didn’t exist, lakes and seas would dry up, there wouldn’t be clouds or rains any more and the Earth would die.”

Mark reads: “Trees.”

Charles says: “I read in the encyclopaedia that if there were no trees we would die by asphyxiation.”

“What a horrible death!” Vincent bursts out .

“This is really a great gift!” Frances says.

I open my small packet and then the others too, and one by one we read the name of the gift: “sky”, “earth”, “sun”, “mountains”, “moon”, “oceans”, “light”, “stars”, “birds”, “fish”, “dogs”, “comets”, “cats”, “lions”, “houses”, “wind”, “boats”...

We all read and commented for an hour.

Chapter 4

I entered the classroom and as soon as I saw the Christmas tree I thought: “I’ve never realized how many gifts God gave us! I’ve never thanked Him for them.”

Miss Mary pulled out some sweets from her bag and gave us two each. We thanked her and she asked us: “Do you like them? Are you happy?”. Everybody said yes and we thanked her again.

At the end of the break our catechist said: “If you are so happy and grateful for two small pieces of sugar, can you imagine how happy you should be for having received the sun, the stars and all you can see? How much should you thank He who gave us everything? Did any of you pay some money to rent the sun every day or to rent the birds, fish and animals that live everywhere?”

Mark: “It’s true! We received everything as a present.”

Vincent: “So we can say that God is somebody who gave us lots of presents.”

Frances: “So He loves us, as my mum always tells me.”

“But we never see Him! – says Vincent – I never thought about Him, but now I have some doubts. He may exist. If we receive presents this means somebody sent them to us. But why doesn’t God show Himself?”

Miss Mary helps us: “You see this statue? Well, I don’t know who made it, but certainly somebody did it. Since it is finished, we can see it. The blackboard too was made and finished and now we can see it. When the statue was a mound of plaster powder, were we able to see the statue?”

“No – Mark says – but we could imagine it.”

Alan: “But that’s different!”

Vincent: “The coloured, finished statue is easy to see.”

Mary: “A house too. It’s finished so we can see it.”

I add: “We can see everything that is finished then!”

Miss Mary says: “Mark, touch where the statue finishes.”. Mark strokes the statue and says: “It finishes here.”

Miss Mary: “This is why we see it. Frances, touch where the blackboard finishes.” Frances sweeps her hand around the blackboard and says: “It finishes here, here and here, and that’s why we can see it.”

Mary says: “Vincent, touch where the door finishes.” He touches the door in various points, then says: “It finished here and we can see how big it is and we also see its colours.”

Mary asks all of us: “You said you can’t see God and it’s true. But I ask myself: where does God finish? Does He finish where our school is? Outside this building? Can the building tell God: where I am you can’t be? Or can the blackboard tell God: where I am you can’t be because I am already here? Is God outside the school or inside too?”

Vincent: “Maybe He is both inside and outside, but I don’t know.”

The Miss Mary: “Can any of you say where God finish, as we said for the statue, the blackboard or the chair?”

Mark: “If God is both outside and inside, He never finishes.”

Mary: “You’re right. He never finishes.”

Vincent: “This is the reason we can’t see Him! If He exists but He never finishes, then we can’t see Him.”

Miss Mary: “We can only see things that are finite while we can’t see God, although He exists, because He has no end, He isn’t made and finished. He isn’t finite, He never ends, so we say He is infinite.”

Frances: “But I don’t understand how God can be infinite.”

Mary tries to help her: “Our mind can’t understand because it is a finite thing, so it can’t understand, that is it can’t contain, something that is infinite. Shall I tell you a story?

There was a child, like you, who thought: ‘I can’t understand how God can exist if we never see Him. How can He be infinite? How could He make the whole world if nobody made Him first? I can’t understand how He can exist and never end. I don’t understand how... I don’t understand how...’ and he went on asking himself lots of questions about God, while he was walking along the beach of the ocean. Then he saw a child, much smaller than him, who was playing. He went near and saw he had dug a hole in the sand, a hole as big as a fist, and he was taking the ocean water with a small nutshell and pouring it in the hole. The big child, whose mind was brimming with questions about God, asked the toddler: “What are you doing?” and he answered: “I’m trying to pour the ocean into my little lake.” The big child smiled at this innocent game. When he told me about it – Mary said – I told him: ‘You’re trying to do exactly the same thing the toddler was doing. How can you pretend to stuff God, who is much bigger than the ocean and the world, into your small head?”

There were many more questions about God, but Mary didn’t answer any longer, but she tried to make us find an answer. Then we drew some of the gifts we had talked about earlier on our notebooks, and we wrote poems about the this topic: ‘If God gives us so many gifts it’s because He loves us.”

Chapter 5

Before opening the other gifts, the bigger ones, Mark says: “My mum told me that we are God’s children too.”

“It’s true –Miss Mary says – I’ll tell you a difficult word now: we are adopted children of God.”

“I know what adopted means – Frances interrupts – I know a boy, his name is Frank and he is one year old. His parents were so poor that they couldn’t even feed him! My neighbours adopted him. They already had a son, so now they’ve got two. Frank is now their son and he has the same things the real son has.”

“That’s right –Miss Mary says – our parents are all poor before God. Who can give a sun? Or thousands of stars? Or an ocean? A forest and all the presents we haven’t opened yet? So, God adopted us, as His children, and we’ve become Jesus’ brothers and sisters, and we receive loads of presents from Him every day.”

Mark: “We are very important for sure.”

I come forward: “Miss Mary, can we continue opening the presents?”

“Of course. Let’s open the big packets and then, another day, we’ll open the bigger boxes.”

We read some words: “eyes”, “brain”, “brothers and sisters”, “heart”, “hands and legs”, “mother”, “hearing”, “grandparents”, “father”.

“What are eyes?” Miss Mary asks.

“They are alike a camera”, Andrew says.

Vincent adds: “And we don’t even need a film or a card or a disc.”

And I add: “But I don’t understand how I can see with two eyes only.”

Miss Mary reassures me by saying: “It’s almost impossible to understand it at your age. It’s quite difficult, in fact, you need to study all the different parts of the eye, and their functions too, as deeply as a doctor studies them. But, in the end, it’s still hard to understand how we can bring the whole world home, that is, inside our brain, without touching it.”

Then we talked about “brain”. We said so many things! And I learnt a lot of facts I didn’t know. While I was listening to my mates’ questions, answers came up in my mind. Before that, I had never thought so carefully about this organ and I had never asked myself so many questions.

Therefore, at the end of all this thinking, we found out that the most perfect computer ever invented had already been created thousands of years ago, and that’s our brain, made by God who gave it to us as a present.

Chapter 6

Today we have opened another packet and the word inside was “brothers and sisters”. Most of us said that this is the best present we’ve ever received, but then, after we opened a new box with the word “mother”, we all changed our minds and we said that was the best gift we’ve ever received and we all agreed. To say the truth, not all of us agreed, because Henry, Albert and Angela didn’t raise their hand to say they agreed. Only Henry added that he still though “brother” was the best word: maybe he gets on well with his brother, but not with his mum.

Andrew had a box with the word “heart”. When he read it, we were all excited.

“Yes, the heart is important – Luke said – because if it stops beating we’ll die immediately”.

Miss Mary adds: “Do you know that it beats 32 million of times in a year?”

Andrew, with his little piece of paper in his hand, says: “I think it is important because we love with our heart.”

“Yes, - Frances adds – I often hear people say: I love you with all my heart.”

Vincent and I agree.

Luke says: “In the encyclopaedia I read that the heart is a perfect machine. If it is a machine, it can’t love!”

Miss Mary smiles but says nothing.

Alan: “Therefore we believe we love with our heart, but is it really so?”

I asked: “If we don’t love with our hearts, what do we love with?”

Silence. Miss Mary smiles, as somebody who knows the answer because they have already thought about it. She waits. She wants us to think. Andrew, Frances and Mark repeat that we love with our heart but they don’t know how. Miss Mary says: “I’ll ask a question, but be careful because it could be a trick.

What if we loved with other body parts or with our whole body?”

Andrew says: “My hair and nails cannot love.” I immediately shouted that we may love with other body parts.

Andrew specifies: “When I want to show my mum I love her I hug her, so arms and hands are important to love.”

Frances: “I kiss her on her cheek.”

Andrew: “Then our mouth and cheeks are important to love.”

It was quiet and I said: “With our feet! Yes, because I leap onto my mum’s lap to hug her. How could I do without my feet?”

Miss Mary: “What about eyes? Do you keep them open or closed when you hug her?”

Adelia, without raising her hand: “Open, to see her well! But when I kiss her, now that I think of it, I’m not sure. Maybe I keep them closed.”

Some say “open”, others say “closed”.

I was a bit confused and I wasn’t sure about it.

Miss Mary adds: “You could keep them closed to feel only her. You see, when you use your body you have to be careful and pay attention to what you do, otherwise you could make mistakes without even being aware of it.”

Vincent wants an example to understand better, so Mary says: “If you use your mouth and your stomach, that is your body, to eat four ice-creams instead of one, you’ll throw up or get indigestion.”

Vincent, who has understood, adds: “If I climb on a tree with my hands and feet without thinking about the danger, I’ll run the risk of falling and break my head.”

Luke: “If I use my body to dive in a dangerous place, I could drown”.

We all said something about it.

When I got out of the classroom I told myself: “As soon as I get home I’ll give mum a hug and I’ll kiss her in order to see if I keep my eyes open or closed.”

Chapter 7

We kept on reading the gifts, we commented them, with lots of questions, until we found satisfactory answers.

Chapter 8

“Let’s go back to our Christmas tree – Miss Mary said – to the most important gifts our Lord prepared for us.” Then our catechist got near the colourful packets and opened one. Inside it there was a golden envelop and a sheet of paper with “love” written on it. When our catechist asked if we knew what it meant, 29 hands were up.

Vincent started: “When we are fond of our friends, this is love.”

But Frances: “I would rather call it friendship.”

Mark: “In my opinion, love is when a boy is in love with a girl. My cousin is engaged to Iris and they will probably get married at the end of the year. They love each other. I think that is love.”

Luke asks: “Miss Mary, what is the difference between love and friendship?”

Andrew says: “I think it’s the same.”

“No – Adelia says – Mark’s cousin has many female friends in his village but he only loves Iris and he will marry only her.”

I said: “I love all mothers I know but I love my mum in a different way. I can’t say the difference.”

Phil says: “I love all cats, but I love mine in a different way. If I see a dead cat in the street I say: ‘Poor thing!’ But if my cat died, I’d cry for a week.”

Andrew asks: “So, we are friends of many people but we love only one, that is one mum, one dad, one wife and one husband.”

Frances objected: “If mum and dad have five children, how can they love only one?”

Silence.

There are no hands up. Miss Mary helps us: “Five children are like one for their parents and they love them all. Maybe Andrew is right.”

Vincent: “Yes, he’s right until somebody else gives us a better answer.”

Luke adds: “I love my sister Milva in a different way from all the other girls I play with.”

I raised my hand and I said that I once went to church and the priest said that we must love everybody. Certainly he was wrong.”

Frances: “Miss Mary, help us.”

And she: “You see, we often use the same word to say different things. I’ll tell you a word that you’ll understand later: ‘analogy’. We could also say likeness/similarity. I’ll give you an example: ‘I love my mum and I love my cat.’ But we use the verb ‘love’ for the cat as an analogy because I perfectly know that they are two very different kinds of love.”

Mark adds: “I love an apple tree in my garden and I love my cat. But I think it’s a very different love.”

Mary: “Well said. Now, let’s go back to what Josy heard in church, that is we must love everybody. This is true, but we must specify that we must love all girls and boys as if they were our brothers and sisters. In fact, when we know Jesus better, we’ll understand that He loves us as if we were the only one in the world: the only son, the only daughter, the only mother, the only father. But we’ll see through this better later.”

Then we went on talking about love between brothers and sisters and about the love of parents, who are given children by God when they love each other. Therefore I was born because my mum and dad loved each other very much.

Then we talked about the love of God, which gives us many presents and that means He loves us much. Vincent said: “I don’t understand how I can love one if I don’t see him or her.”

Miss Mary asked him: “Can you see your mum now?”

“No, I can’t.”

“And your dad?”

“No.”

“And you love them even if you don’t see them?”

“Yes, but I know they are there.”

“But you aren’t sure God exists, are you?”

Then we were quiet and we ended with a song.

Chapter 9

Today Miss Mary opened another packet with the name of a big gift of God: “Joy”.

Mark says that he feels joy when everybody around him is happy.

Then Andrew says: “When I sing and the others are happy I feel joy.”

Frances: “When I get a good mark at school I feel joy.”

I said: “When my friends play with me or call me to play with them I feel joy.” I didn’t say it, but I meant Andrew, Mark and Vincent, and Adelia too, who is my neighbour like Andrew and Mark.

Then the children added phrases like: “When I hug my mum”, “When I play with my brothers and sisters”, “When a girls tells me she loves me”, “When I eat ice-cream” and we went on talking about what joy is for us, until we filled the blackboard.

Miss Mary, who was writing our answers on the blackboard, suddenly said: “Well, of course there is some difference between one type of joy and another. Being happy for an ice-cream or for a hug are not the same joy, isn’t it? Anyway, most of your comments make me understand that you feel joy when the others love you and you love them. We could say that who has the gift of Love also has the gift of Joy.”

Then we opened the packets with “peace”.

Vincent immediately added: “if we have love and joy we have peace.”

Frances: “Peace is when war ends.”

Mark: “I don’t think we need war to love peace.”

Charles: “I’ve never fought in the war, but I make friends with everybody, I have in peace with everybody.”

Frances: “How do you know peace if you’ve never quarrelled?”

Charles: “If I never quarrel I am always in peace.”

Vincent repeats in different words what he said before: “If I love somebody or somebody loves me I am happy and in peace.”

Alan: If I help my dad or mum, or if somebody makes me happy, I can say it gives me peace.”

So we filled the blackboard again.

Chapter 10

In today’s lesson we opened other boxes: “patience”.

Frances, as soon as she heard the word, says: “I have no patience.”

I add I also have little patience.

Mark says: “I think I am quite patient: sometimes I’d like to finish up my homework in ten minutes and go to play. Instead it takes me two hours.”

Mark says: “We have to consider our intelligence and our memory skills, as a consequence we must learn to wait and take our time.”

Vincent: “I think we all students are quite patient: school is beautiful but it is also tiring, so if we weren’t patient we would fly away immediately and wouldn’t stay for so many hours.”

Frances: “I don’t have this gift and I don’t like it at all. I often look patient, but it’s by necessity, I can’t avoid it.”

Vincent: “Maybe you don’t like it, but you can’t say you are a little patient. In fact you get up early to come to school every morning and you work all day, so you can’t have no patience. When you get a bad mark you don’t get angry and rip your notebook. When somebody plays a joke on you, you don’t attack them like a tiger. You wait too.”

Frances: “So you think I’m patient too.”

Charles. “I’m wondering: if we don’t have the gift of Love, so much the worse for us. If we don’t have Joy, so much the worse for us. If we don’t have Peace, so much the worse for us. If we don’t have Patience, so much the worse for us.”

I said: “These are really great gifts. We can’t do without them.”

Then we opened the other packets: “benevolence”, “goodness”, “loyalty”, “meekness”, “self-restraint” and we commented them all.

In these two weeks we drew a picture for each gift at home and we also wrote a poem or a song for each gift.

Miss Mary also called these gifts with a name: “The Fruits of the Holy Ghost”.

I didn’t understand this title much, but Miss Mary has already made us understand that if we receive the Spirit of God, He changes our lives and we become like a tree which brings new fruits. What fruits? Love, Joy, Patience, Goodness, Loyalty, Meekness, Self-restraint.

Chapter 11

Miss Mary asked us: “How long have we been learning in this ‘research community’ that we also call catechism, but it should be called ‘catechist research community’?”

We counted three months. And then she asked: “What do you remember?”

Vincent: “I think that it is almost certain that God exists.”

Frances: “God gave us many gifts.”

I said: “Because He loves us.”

Mark: “When we pray we must thank Him.”

Mark: “God is great and never ends and everything we see was given to us by Him. What we can’t see was given to us by Him too: the wind, faraway things, Love, Joy, Peace and Goodness.”

Alan: “It’s nice to be good.”

Charles: “It’s nice to help people.”

Alan: “This year I learnt that God is our father and we are Jesus’ brothers.”

Charles: “Now I know that we can’t understand God as a whole because our brain is small.”

We filled the blackboard with sentences about what we thought, sought and found out in the past months. After that we started drawing pictures of what we had written on the blackboard and now we are finishing them at home. We also have to write a song for each sentence. I wonder how Mark will draw the fact that God is infinite, maybe he will leave the page blank. So we ended our first part of catechistic research.

Before stopping writing, I must say that Adelia, to whom I sometimes read these pages, came here some minutes ago and told me: “In the catechistic research community we are 29, plus Miss Mary, but you’ve only reported the questions and ideas of 5 or 6 of us. How come?”

And I said: “You’re right. It’s true they are not the only ones to speak, but I especially remember what my close friends say. I listen to the others, but when I think of the lesson I remember my friends first. However, I must make an effort and pay more attention to the others. I could also make friends with the others, so that I will remember them more easily.”

Chapter 12

Miss Mary told us that today we will start a new research about beauty and wonder, in order to know something more about this God that gives us so many presents. If His deeds are so good and beautiful, this means He is really good and beautiful. Miss Mary gave us half an hour to get out of the classroom and find beautiful things. We immediately disappeared: we went along the main streets, paths, near the stream, in the courtyards.

We all asked us what we were looking for and we answered: “Beautiful things.”

Five minutes later, four of us sat down to think about something so beautiful that it could make us win.

When our allotted time was over, we arrived with lots of various flowers: daisies, primroses, violets, dahlias and geraniums from our gardens. We were about to give the first prize to a bunch of wonderful flowers that Ada had brought, when I took out a glass of water, which Miss Mary really appreciated.

Andrew, who was one of the four who had sat down to think, took out a new-laid egg. He had taken it from the nest of a broody hen. With a large smile, full of pride, he said: “There is a chick inside.” We all agreed this marvel was the best. When it was his turn Mark opened a big box: there was a kitten, as small as two hands, so we all said: “The cat is the winner.”

Miss Mary made us notice that the eyes (we had already talked about them as a complex camera), then the ears and the head with a marvellous computer inside. Then Vincent asked Miss Mary if she could give him five more minutes because his thing wasn’t ready (it wasn’t completely true: he had thought about that thing when he had seen the cat).

Miss Mary asked us if we agreed to give him extra time. We were very curious, so we said yes.

Vincent went away and Miss Mary made us consider the egg carefully and helped us to see that marvel with new eyes and she also praised the flowers, both the colourful ones and the little one.

Vincent knocked, then he entered with his mum. He was holding tight a great marvel: his little baby-sister. We all clapped our hands. It was not a doll, it was a real baby girl. When everybody was quiet, which took a while, Miss Mary said: “All these things were made by a great artist whose name is God. None of us can make a flower. We can make paper flowers or cloth flowers, but it’s different. Who could design an egg with a living chick inside? Or a kitten or a baby? They are not only designed and painted by Him, but also made with wonderful, mysterious fibres.”

Miss Mary divided us into pairs and asked us to look at each other carefully and see how beautiful we are. In the end, Miss Mary told Vincent: “You brought the most beautiful thing, but you wouldn’t have thought about it if you hadn’t seen the kitten brought by Mark, the egg brought by Andrew, the glass of water brought by Josy and the flowers brought by your mates.” We were all waiting for her decision. She said: “So I must say that you all got the first prize.” We exulted and went home joyfully.

Chapter 13

Today Miss Mary came with a long needle and asked: “We move and breathe and see in this air, but there is a whole world that we can’t see but it is there. We use our telephones and we can speak to faraway friends, so there must be something marvellous which links us, don’t you think so?”

Mark said right away: “Of courses! There are waves.”

Mary said: “Have you already seen them?”

Vincent: “No, we haven’t. But we know they exist because our teacher told us.”

Mary: “Well, can you imagine how many different, invisible waves can reach the tip of this needle?”

Silence.

“They all pass through it and we just need a device, such as a mobile phone, a radio or a television, to detect a message: it can be a TV programme, a film or a call from a friend. Try to visualize all the waves that pass through the tip of this needle! They carry images, numbers and words: they all come here. Isn’t it wonderful?”

We usually make phone calls without ever thinking about what is behind a phone call.

Andrew: “What are waves?”

Frances: “If they call them waves it means they look like sea waves.”

Mark: “There is a difference though. Sea waves are made of water, so they are heavy and slow, while airwaves are very quick.”

Luke tells us what he read in the encyclopaedia and we keep on talking about this marvel.

Chapter 14

Today Miss Mary made us open and close the window shutters to learn that light is a body; it’s like an object in fact it can pass through a solid body. We put together all the information we had about light: “It travels at 300,000 km per second, so it takes 8 minutes to reach the Earth from the Sun, but there are stars whose light reaches the Earth after one hour or a day because they are so far away. It can also take it a year, which is called a light year, or hundreds of years or even millions of years. We had already studied these things at school, but Miss Mary made us think about it, about the distance between galaxies and their fast, rotating movement, like a dance in the universe.

Matthew reminded us that we see thanks to the light, otherwise we would live in the darkness, and Hyacintha said that it is light that makes us see the colours. Miss Mary lit a candle when the shutters were closed and we could see the objects but we couldn’t see the colours very well.

Then Miss Mary opened and closed the shutters so we understood it was light that allowed us to see colours.

I thought so intently about light that I even got a headache.

Then we tried to draw light on our notebook.

Chapter 15

Today Miss Mary brought us two little boxes, as big as the boxes used for jewels, and told us that she was going to open one but we had to guess the other one.

In the first there was a small pebble and she asked us why it could be so precious. We tried to answer, then she told us: “Couldn’t it be a miniature galaxy?” This reminded us of all the facts we knew about molecules and atoms, which are both invisible. A classmate said that there are protons in the atoms, other classmates said that electrons move around the nucleus at an unbelievable speed.

Mark said: “There are millions of atoms in the pebble.”

Charles added: “Everything is moving in the pebble, like planets, satellites and stars in a big space galaxy.”

I thought of how beautiful and precious are the pebbles that I trample on every day.

Then Miss Mary told us that we had to guess the contents of the other box. She told us that she had seen the biggest diamond in the world and she showed us how big it was using her hands. Then she told us: “Inside this box there is something much more precious than that diamond.” We had several guesses.

Charles said: “One day I was in church and the priest said that one verse of the Bible is more precious than all the gold and silver in the world, so I think there is a verse of the Bible in the box.”

Miss Mary said: “You are right, but you are referring to the idea, not to a concrete, solid object like a pebble.”

Vincent said: “It’s a photo of a part of the universe.”

Mary added: “Your guess is a good one, but there is a real thing in the box, not merely a photo.”

Alfred said: “There are two cube centimetres of air through which a number of waves pass.”

Miss Mary appreciated this answer and said: “You’re not too far, but still it’s not what is inside.” Then she added: “I won’t tell you today. Keep your curiosity, talk about it at home. See you tomorrow. Maybe you’ll have the answer.”

We sang and drew the pebble.

Chapter 16

Before opening the box, she showed a grain of maize and asked: “What do you think is inside this grain?”

Diverse answers and questions.

Then Vincent: “All maize plants.”

And Charles: “Yes, there is the whole plant: the flower on top and the cobs with all the grains.”

Frances: “But is there really everything?”

Vincent: “No, there isn’t. Actually, there is nothing, but this seed is like a device that takes all it needs from the soil and makes a maize plant.”

I said: “Therefore we can think that a grain of maize and a grain of wheat, next to each other, will suck all they need to make a plant of maize and a plant of wheat.”

Miss Mary says: “So were the cob and the ear in the earth?”

Andrew: “Of course, they were! But then all we eat is made of earth, selected earth?”

Miss Mary: “Do the fruits that come from the earth and that we eat become part of our body?”

Frances: “I’m not sure.”

Mark: “Then we are also made of earth, or rather, as if we were made of earth.”

Miss Mary: “Isn’t the earth precious?” We all said yes.

Then Miss Mary said: “So, if we take a handful of earth and put a flower seed inside, do you think some flower will come out of it?” We all said yes.

Then, she continued: “And what if we put some seeds in a handful of diamonds...” but she couldn’t finish her sentence because we all knew the contents of the box then.

I think the first to speak was Andrew: “There is some earth in the box”, but I also said it and the others too.

Then we sang the song ‘Thank You Lord for All Creatures’ while Miss Mary opened the box.

In the end she said: “If a magician transformed the Earth into a big diamond, that would be the greatest catastrophe because the earth would die.”

Then we drew the earth.

I drew lots of flowers and fruits: all those I could draw.

Chapter 17

Miss Mary asked Vincent: “What do you think about God?”

Vincent: “I think it exists because otherwise I couldn’t understand a thing.”

Mark: “I couldn’t even think.”

Frances: “And we couldn’t be part of the catechistic research community.”

Then Miss Mary told us that we would start to read tales that Jesus used to tell to help people think and find new ways of living. She started with this story.

The story of the prodigal son is about a young man who wants to have fun, but then, at a certain point in his life, he stops to think. And the moment he stops, his life changes. If he hadn’t stopped to think he would have ended up dying of hunger and sadness.

A father had two sons. Because we have to talk about the prodigal son we will give him a name; let’s call him Augustine. Can a dishonest person become honest?

- Can a person who has been wicked for a long time become good?

- When a person decides to take action, does he/she think the action is good?

- Can a person think that what he is doing is wrong and do it nevertheless?

- The son leaves his home. Does it mean that he doesn’t agree with his father?

- Is it possible that the son agrees with his father’s ideas but doesn’t want to put them into practice?

- Is it pleasant to do wrong? Give examples.

- What does ‘prodigal’ mean? Does it mean someone very good? Is it a wicked person? Somebody who spends a lot? Someone who repented?

- Is it possible to be a good prodigal and a wicked prodigal?

- Does the story tell us how many brothers or sisters were in the house?

- Does it say that at least two brothers were in the house?

- Does it say that the run-away son often quarrelled with his father or brother?

- Does the story mean that the run-away son was only wicked, with no good inside him?

- What does the run-away son want in his life?

- While the prodigal son is having fun, can he find time to think?

- Does the story tell us the reason why he left his home?

- Did the run-away son have needs that his brother didn’t have?

- Did he want to have a career, earn a lot of money and become rich? Does the story say it?

- Did he have dreams? Did he want to help the others and do good?

- Did he cry while he was leaving? Does the story say it?

- Does money give him confidence? Does the story say it?

- Are people who lots of money happy?

- Is the boy happy while he is spending money? Does the story say it?

- How does the boy have fun? Drinking, getting drunk, gambling, using drugs, going with prostitutes, buying useless things, paying food and drinks to friends, wasting time with friends? Does the story underline all this?

- Is the prodigal happy while he is having fun? Does the story say it? When someone is having fun are they always happy?

- Is someone who works hard every day a sad person?

- Have you ever met people who only have fun and are sad?

- Do you know people who work hard every day and are happy?

Choose the correct answer in your opinion:

· Augustine is certainly happy while he is having fun.

· I think Augustine may be happy while having fun. · If Augustine weren’t happy while having fun, he wouldn’t keep on doing it.

- Do you know people who have fun for reasons that are not joy?

- Is it possible that Augustine realized he was wrong when he had left his house, so he decided to forget about his situation by living a wild life? Would he be happy in this case too?

- Does Augustine become poor because he spent all his money or because a famine struck the country? Are there other reasons?

- Does Augustine start to work because he decides to or because he is forced to?

- Does Augustine eat pods for pigs?

- Does he like them?

- Does he envy the pigs?

- Does he start to think he made a mistake?

- Does he start to think he made a big mistake?

- Does he start to think about his father, who is waiting for him?

- Does he start to think about his brother, who he hasn’t seen for a long time?

- Does he think that he is hungry and his servants at home have food to eat?

- What does he decide to do?

Give the wasted money back to his father and work to re-pay him.

Be forgiven by his father.

Make peace with his brother.

Find a job to earn some extra food.

Go and work as a servant at his father’s house, since he has no more rights as a son.

Try to be accepted in his father’s house as his son again.

- Does the story include some of these questions-answers?

- What does Augustine’s father think of him?

He thinks he will never come back.

He thinks he will certainly come back and ask for forgiveness.

He thinks his son will not come back, so he is like a dead son. However, he sometimes watches the road and thinks it will be nice to see him coming home.

He thinks he son made a big mistake and he cannot find the courage to come home.

He thinks that losing a son is better than having a criminal son at home.

He thinks he will accept him at home again if he repents and becomes good.

- Does the story include some of these questions-answers?

- Does Augustine ask his father for forgiveness?

- Does Augustine want to be accepted as a son again?

- Does he show he repented and wouldn’t do it again if you could.

- Does he say that he was never happy away from home?

- Does he say that he knows he will never be considered as a son again?

- Does he ask for a job in order to get some food?

- Does he think, in his heart, that his father will forgive him and welcome him and everything will be like before?

- Does he expect nothing, only a job and some food?

- Does he say: “Father, I was wrong, forgive me, I’ll never do it again”?

- Does he admit he was wrong but doesn’t promise anything?

- Does his father understand he is good now, so he welcomes him?

- Does his father know if Augustine has really repented or not?

- Augustine went back home. Is this a sign of humbleness or did he do it just because he was hungry?

- Does the father give presents to Augustine because he deserves them?

- If Augustine hadn’t deserved the presents, would it have been unfair towards the other son?

- Is Augustine’s brother happy to see the feast?

- Does he show he is happy, not with words but actions?

- Is Augustine’s brother really angry with Augustine?

- Is he angry because Augustine dared to come back home?

- Is he angry because all the property, which is now his, will be divided?

- Is Augustine’s brother angry with his father or with his brother?

- Is he angry because his father wasn’t fair?

- Is he angry because he didn’t give his sons presents according to what they deserved?

- Is he angry because he thinks he deserves more than his brother, since he has always been good, loyal, honest while his brother was dishonest and unfaithful?

- Does the father love Augustine more than his other son?

- Does the father love both?

- Why do you think that the father gave more to Augustine?

- Have you ever heard at home sentences like this one: “Look, I’ve never done anything wrong, I’m an honest person, I do good, but I get so many troubles and misfortunes! That man is wicked, never prays, he is evil and he is so lucky!” Read the story of the Pharisee and the Publican. Or the story of the eleventh-hour workers.

The lost sheep

- Was the lost sheep the only wicked sheep while the others were certainly good?

- Was the lost sheep just absent-minded?

- Would it have certainly be safe if it had obeyed the shepherd?

- Was the lost sheep as good as the others?

- Does the story say that the sheep was a rebel?

- Does the story say that the sheep was stubborn?

- Does the story only say that it got lost?

- Could it be possible the sheep got lost because it was looking after a lamb that couldn’t walk as fast as the other sheep?

- Was it a lost sheep, despite the reasons why it got lost?

- Is the shepherd angry with the sheep, since he spent so much time looking her it?

- Does it take the shepherd a long time to find the sheep? Does the story say it?

- Does the sheep asks for help by bleating? Does the sheep want to come back? Does the story say it?

- Does the shepherd ask the sheep if it wants to come back with the others? Does he take it and take it to the others because he knows that it will die of solitude?

- When the shepherd arrives he has a feat because:

He knew the shepherd was not guilty

The sheep is very happy to see him

The shepherd loves his sheep and he is sad when he loves one of them.

- Wouldn’t it have been better to hit the sheep with a stick in front of the other 99 sheep in order to make them understand that they have to obey the shepherd so as not to get lost?

- If he had hit the lost sheep, would the other sheep have understood he loved them?

- At the end of the story, there is a repented sinner for whom they have a big feast. Which expression is linked to the lost sheep? Does the shepherd have a feast because he consider the sheep innocent or because he loves it and forgives it although it made a mistake?

- Is the shepherd happy because he found the sheep or are there other reasons?

- Have you ever heard of people who had a similar story?

The lost coin

- The prodigal son made a mistake. The lost sheep also made some kind of mistake. What mistake did the coin make?

- Even if it had no guilt, can we say the coin was in the wrong place?

Lc 10,25

The good Samaritan

Remember that the Samaritans are generally considered Judeans’ worst enemies. The beaten man is a Judean.

Is the man who was beaten poor or rich? Good or wicked? Did he try to resist...and got a sound thrashing for this? Or is he a good man who didn’t resist? Was he beaten by the robbers because he had lots of money? Did the robbers beat him because he was scared and attacked them first, so they had to punch him to death as a defence?

Do we know why he was beaten?

Are we sure he was beaten and left half dead?

Is it possible that the priest did not help the man because he did not see him?

Is it possible he thought he was not so seriously hurt?

Why didn’t the Levite stop? Because he thought the man was a criminal? Because he thought the man was an enemy? Because he didn’t have time? Was the Levite lazy? Do we know why he didn’t stop?

The Samaritan, an enemy of the Judeans, stopped because:

-he understood the man was an innocent victim

-he didn’t realise the man was a Judean, therefore an enemy

-he thought the man was rich so he would give him a reward for being saved

-he thought he would be punished by the authorities because he hadn’t helped a person in need

-he thought he could be blamed for the death of the man

Did he help him out of pity, because he was moved to compassion, although the man could be an enemy?

Did the story say why the Samaritan stopped?

At the end of the story, are there details that tell us if the Samaritan helped the man out of self-interest or not? After the Samaritan took the man to an inn, does he ask about his name or address in order to meet him again?

Is the Samaritan’s help completely gratuitous?