I came across this short notice in The Catholic Sun that the co-founder of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Sofia Cavalletti died in Rome yesterday. Cavalletti was 94 years old. 

Cavalletti, a Hebrew and scripture scholar, began her work with children in 1954 after a discussion with children over a passage in the Bible. She began her work with colleague and Maria Montessori educator, Gianna Gobbi.  

The two set out to observe and discover what teaching method would suit children in their faith formation.

Her insights are documented in many of her books, such as “The Religious Potential of the Child,” “Six to Twelve Years,”and “The Good Shepherd and the Child,”to name a few.

Cavalletti’s work will be well-known to anyone who has had a child in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. It is a wonderful program that draws children into the biblical story (and stories) at their own pace and according to their own needs. Many children were introduced to the Gospel through the work of Sofia Cavalletti and her program continues to thrive all over the world. On a personal note, my wife brought my youngest son to the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd even before we had joined the Catholic Church and she was later trained in the teaching methods of the program. It was, indeed, an impetus for our family joining the Catholic Church. A true child of God, may she rest in peace and eternal light.

John W. Martens

Follow me on Twitter @johnwmartens

 

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.