Fifteen years ago, I was asked to prepare several children with disabilities for their First Communion.
Despite my training in education, I was at a loss. There were no texts, no materials to guide me. I began the work with great love, but without real preparation.
I want to share the journey I made with these dear children, who became my teachers. And if it might help others charged with their spiritual formation, I want to offer what I discovered.
As I drew close to them, I deepened my own spiritual life. I came to understand that in contact with God, no one is handicapped, because our relationship with God is life itself. Through them I learned that God does not communicate with us through the intellect, but through a kind of intuition that the mystics speak of. I cannot say more, because we stand in mystery, and words can only stammer at something so vast.
Through Baptism, we receive divine life as a gift, and with it the virtues of faith, hope, and charity—spiritual organs through which we think, see, and love in God's way.
Our children can certainly live in union with God a life of faith, hope, and charity.
This, for me, is a certainty that grows brighter each day.
For children with disabilities to become aware of the divine life within them, their environment must help them.
First, it is essential that the child live in an atmosphere of faith, hope, and love—a life lived with God. In such an environment, the soul opens naturally to religious attitudes, absorbing what surrounds it. Then comes specialized religious formation, adapted to the particular relationship that can develop between the catechist and the child.
At this point, I believe the catechist must know the child, spend time with him, build a living relationship. Observe his reactions. Only then can you choose the right approach. But above all, you must love him, because love alone will show you how to draw forth the light that dwells in his heart—the light that God has placed there.
My first experiences in catechesis were with children who could respond to sensory methods—visual, auditory, tactile. Methods that worked through simple presentations, pictures, and objects.
I developed two distinct forms of catechesis. One was individual: children accompanied by a family member, coming to me for preparation in the sacraments—Communion, Confession, Confirmation. We met weekly, with the mother or another helper present to reinforce what we discussed during the week at home. The other was collective: a group of young people who had already received the sacraments, meeting in a protected workshop setting for deeper exploration of Christian living.
The essential principles I offer apply to both.
1. The religious message must be simple and stripped to the essentials—no intellectual explanations, no memorized repetitions. It is teaching rooted in life: we always begin from lived experience and move toward mystery. It is slow teaching, given drop by drop.
The core messages are:
- God loves us and gives us everything.
- Jesus teaches us to love.
- Jesus gives himself to us as bread of life.
As I said, we always start from something concrete, something the child knows through experience. My home where I live becomes the house of God, the Church. The table where I eat becomes Jesus's table, the altar. Bread from home becomes the bread of Jesus.
2. The child must engage in an activity that connects with the message. Sensory activity: seeing, touching, drawing, shaping, singing, praying, making gestures.
Our task is to help them enter into the mystery of divine life. I say "help," because the Holy Spirit acts in them with complete freedom.
The catechesis—whether individual or collective—follows the liturgical calendar, so that children become part of the life of the Church and the mysteries of Christ.
This is why the Fede e Luce Masses are truly formative: they allow children to participate sensorially in the mystery of Christ, they mark the particular moment of the liturgy, and they bring them into real contact with spiritual reality.
My most recent work has been with children for whom spoken or visual messages were not possible—only lived experience mattered. After our Fede e Luce liturgies, they brought themselves spontaneously to prayer, to Communion, like a flower opening and blooming, in profound joy.
Yes. Living together a religious experience in a faith community is the truest catechesis—the kind that reaches many children who need nothing more to open their hearts to God. Because God is in them, waiting for us to come to meet him.
Sister Ida Maria, 1976
There is something greater than your action: prayer. There is a force more powerful than your words: love. — Carlo Carretto
