CATHOLIC MONTESSORI EDUCATION FORMS THE ADULT
As human beings, we are all created in the image and likeness of God...our true and lasting happiness is union with Him and our souls are destined to return to Him. As Catholic Christians, we believe that this truth permeates all aspects of our life because our whole humanity is naturally ordered to union with God. However, due to sin, our human nature is flawed and it is a struggle to return to the God who created us. How do we find our way to Him? The answer is simple: the child. In the Gospel of Mark, Christ himself said that “I tell you truly that the man who does not accept the kingdom of God as a little child will not enter into it”. Dr. Montessori adds meaning to this Divine teaching as she says “The religious life of the children will also animate the religious life of the adults, because it will be more true and more real” (The Child in the Church). This is the apostolate of the child….to lead us back to the Father, our ultimate happiness. She continues, “The child can change the hearts of men; in the midst of children their hardness disappears. The child can annihilate selfishness and awaken a spirit of sacrifice. This happens every time a child is born in a family…the love, which then begins, is like a revelation of the moral greatness of which man is capable…in this way does God move and form the adult through the child” (The Child in the Church). When we contemplate the miracle of life created in the womb, we naturally have more respect for God because we are aware that there is a mystery in the creation of life itself. Dr. Montessori believed that any work that God accomplishes with our human nature always calls forth a deeper respect than mere human work. Every time we work with the child, we learn more about ourselves…how we are called to continual conversion amidst our fault and failure, our goodness and success. We learn more about who we are called to become. Dr. Montessori also writes that teachers and parents, if they are to become true educators, must acknowledge the work of God within the child. By doing this they are able to become authentic advocates for the respect of the child, precisely because in their humility, they are able to understand how the child helps them to become holy. Only in the Catholic and Christian Montessori environment is this experience able to flourish freely and openly.
Written by: Maggie Clement
Next Week: Catholic Montessori Education Calls for Evangelization