Monday, June 4, 2007

The Chalice is Like Creation

Charlie, age seven, had been in the atrium for four years. Driving home with his mother, he mentioned that he had been doing the preparation of the chalice. During the lesson on the preparation of the chalice, the catechist says: "The wine represents Jesus." (She pours a full cruet into chalice.) "The water represents you and me." (She pours one drop of water into the wine.) "Now, what could this mean for us?"

Charlie's mom, a catechist herself, asked him what he thought "the mystery of the water and wine" meant. (His mom was thinking it meant that we are so small, and God is so great.) But Bobby said, "It's like creation: the water is the people, and the wine is Jesus and God. When everything was prepared in the world, people came last, just like the water is added last after the wine is prepared." His mom asked the other catechists whether any of them might have presented this idea to Charlie, but they hadn't -- he came up with it himself.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How wonderful to see a child spontaneously emply the typological method and in doing so open up new vistas for the adult