BRAINTREE -- For Barbara Matera, moving from Pittsburgh to Boston was what a priest she knows would call a "God incident."

When she moved to be closer to family in July 2025, she debated whether to bring her "voluminous" materials for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS), a Montessori-influenced method of religious education founded in Rome in the 1950s and now practiced in 65 countries. Matera is a CGS formation leader and has been a catechist for 27 years, teaching CGS at her home parish in Pittsburgh. If she couldn't use the materials, she figured someone else could. After settling into her new parish, St. Mary of the Assumption in Brookline, Archdiocese of Boston Evangelization Consultant Melissa Kalpakgian approached Matera with an offer to form catechists in the archdiocese. She said yes.

"I think it gives children a time and place that's set aside and prepared just for them to nurture their relationship with God," Matera said.

The Archdiocese of Boston is hosting educational sessions about CGS this May. An instructional session for clergy will take place at St. Mary's in Brookline on May 5 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sessions for laypeople will take place on May 6 -- one from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at St. Theresa Parish in North Reading and another at St. Benedict Academy in Natick from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Both sessions are free and open to the public. A Zoom QandA session about CGS with Rebekah Rojcewicz will take place on May 7 at 7 p.m. Rojcewicz is an author and catechist who trained under CGS founders Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobbi, translating their works and herself writing some of the most important CGS texts. She is currently co-director of the Good Shepherd Center in Memphis and serves on the International Board for the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Formation for catechists will begin with a weeklong session this July, and another in July 2027. Both formation sessions will be run by Matera and Kristen Kelley, a formation leader in the Diocese of Worcester.

Kalpakgian emphasized that Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is not necessarily better than other methods of faith formation, but is "another offering" from the archdiocese.

"Around the country, there's a renewed interest in it," she said.

While catechizing children in the '50s, Cavalletti and Gobbi found that they experience God's presence in a way that is completely different from adults.

"They realized that there was a great need for children's spirituality to be developed in a way that was appropriate for them, not in a way that we sat and theorized might work for them," Matera said.

Gobbi was a Montessori educator who was familiar with that school's methods to teach liturgy to children.

"Maria Montessori always saw a religious component to her teaching method, and Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is what developed out of that," Kalpakgian said.

The women found that young children responded especially well to the Parable of the Good Shepherd, hence the name of their catechesis.

"They are at a sensitive period, at a time when they're very open to relationships," Matera said. "And that close relationship with the Good Shepherd who knows and calls them by name, and they know his voice. They respond to that in the most wonderful way."

CGS is organized into three levels, or atria -- Level I for children aged three to six, Level II for children aged six to nine, and Level III for children aged nine to 12. Each atrium is a peaceful and prayerful environment with activities to educate children. Matera compared it to what adults would experience on a spiritual retreat. It is not a traditional classroom, and children are not tested on what they have learned.

"We aren't quizzing the child on what they know, because what we're hoping they will know is God," Matera said.

Children can choose activities that appeal to them and help them learn best, much like in a Montessori school. A CGS atrium may have one child arranging flowers in a vase to put on a prayer table and another setting the altar for a pretend Mass with miniature chalices and candlesticks.

The immediate focus is on teaching the youngest children about Mass and how it is celebrated. They are also taught Scripture, the sacraments, and the geography of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Their knowledge of the liturgy often rivals that of adults in the parish.

"The amazing part is, no matter how much we prepare or think we know, or how many Church documents we read, their answers blow us away," Matera said.

Catechists are also organized into three levels. Level I requires 90 hours of formation.

"Catechists have to be formed in the method and in the theology they're going to be teaching," Kalpakgian said.

CGS has only had a small presence in the Archdiocese of Boston to this point. But, Kalpakgian said, "a great deal of emphasis on it" in the Diocese of Worcester, at St. Benedict Classical Academy in Natick, and on social media has created increased interest. She called it an "excellent program" because it gives children a personal relationship with Jesus, something they can't get from a textbook.

"The child falls in love with Jesus, the Good Shepherd, understanding that he's there for them, that he's the light," she said. "And so a relationship with the Good Shepherd develops, so that whenever they go to prepare for their sacraments, they have an understanding of morality that goes back to a relationship with Jesus Christ."

To register for all CGS events in the archdiocese, visit bostoncatholic.org/events/discovering-catechesis-of-the-good-shepherd.