“The atrium is a place of prayer in which [the children’s] work and study spontaneously become meditation, contemplation and prayer.” This is one of the key characteristics of the children’s spiritual formation called Catechesis of the Good Shepherd that we have begun offering on Wednesdays to your children.
We have set aside a sacred space called “The Atrium” in which slowly we will be adding biblical and liturgical materials that will provide the children the most essential proclamations about the Christian faith. For now, we have a prayer table and a few items on it like a cloth, a Bible, a candle, a statue of the Good Shepherd and a prayer card with a simple prayer like “Thank you Jesus,” and “Amen.” The children helped to prepare the prayer table placing each item on the table one by one.
In small groups, the children heard how prayer is talking and listening to God, how we can pray with words, with songs, and in silence. We sang several songs like “Amen,” and “Be Still and Know that I am God.” We heard that Jesus said in John 8:12 “I am the Light of the World,” and we took a few seconds to get our bodies still and listen in silence.
Prayer will be nurtured in the atrium by the way the space is prepared in its simplicity, order and beauty. We will cultivate silence sometimes to listen for God. This experience can be, for some children, their first realization that they have an inner life. Dr. Montessori also spoke of this "interior life", 'Silence...often brings us the knowledge which we had not fully realized, that we possess within ourselves an interior life.' Sometimes we will listen for God to speak through scripture.
The children will be invited to respond to what they hear through their words, their work with wooden materials used to illustrate a scripture passage, and through their artwork. To honor the mystery of the child means to honor their most natural form of response to God, their most natural form of prayer. For the younger children this will primarily be praise and thanksgiving.
KM
