Sacred Heart child responds to eucharistic catechesis during catechist formation. (Courtesy photo)
Special to the Herald
Sacred Heart, Hawi, a small parish in North Kohala on the Big island, is laying a new foundation for religious education using a program called Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS). Following the departure of its beloved director of religious education, Evie Adams, and her able assistant, husband and deacon Tom Adams, who moved to Texas to support ailing family members during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kohala parish needed to reconsider its approach to religious education.
The pastor, Father Elias “Eli” Escanilla, turned to parishioner John Pollard to serve as interim director and to find a way to renew religious education for all age groups. Pollard, a graduate of the theology and catechetics programs at Franciscan University of Steubenville, remembered the love of Jesus and faithful discipleship formed in the children participating in the Steubenville CGS program.
Following a period of discernment, Sacred Heart decided that this nationally recognized catechetical program would be the new foundation for all parish religious education.
CGS is a diocese-supported Montessori approach to religious education that seeks an encounter between each child, or adult, and the living Word of God. In CGS the child comes to know himself or herself as a unique and beautiful child of God. In listening for Jesus, the children come to recognize his voice, wonder at the beauty of his creation, and come to personally know the Good Shepherd, who loves, protects and walks with them throughout life.
Parishioners and trainers participating in parish-based Catechesis of the Good Shepherd certification program at Sacred Heart Parish, Hawi. (Courtesy photo)
Calling on its parish members to discern a vocational call as catechists, Sacred Heart was blessed to have 10 of them step forward to join in an intensive two-week training course. In August, with the support of the Diocese of Honolulu, two nationally certified CGS trainers, Joan Heil and Maile Domingo, traveled from Oahu to conduct the course.
Sacred Heart certified seven CGS level one catechists, Alan Brown, Joan Caravalho, Jean De Mercer-Breese, Carole Mozeleski, John Pollard, Sandie Torres and Loretta Wickenden, and three assistant catechists, Rita Maria, John Penner and Maria Schulz. All experienced a deepened faith in their encounter with the Good Shepherd and are grateful for relationships formed with Heil and Domingo.
CGS has taken root at Sacred Heart with the new catechists devoting hundreds of hours to create the atriums (prepared environments) and other CGS materials. A renewed catechetical ministry began on Sept. 21 with 24 children. On Oct. 6, the parish began a new kupuna catechetical ministry for North Kohala.
Sacred Heart, Hawi, is very grateful for the active support of the diocese and in particular its Director of Faith Formation, Jayne Ragasa Mondoy, in helping re-establish catechesis at the parish.
