Maria Montessori on Religious Education

During a job interview six years ago the gentleman who would become my boss a year later read this quote to me. I was new to Montessori at the time. I was a wanna-be religious educator and learned of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. When Dan read this, I was amazed at which the profound reality of liturgy was passed on to children. Maria Montessori was one amazing woman. She not only developed amazing materials that make each and every concept tangible for the child so that independence is mastered at each level; she thought of each child as a whole being: spiritual, emotional and physical. This excerpt is from The Discovery of the Child's chapter on religious education. This was written about her first work with religious education in a 3-6 environment.

Work in the fields as part of religious education:

We thought that it would be an excellent idea to have the children grow the wheat and the grapes to be used as the material for the Eucharist and thus incorporate the children's religious activities into their labors and joys in the fields. we therefore set aside portions of a large meadow where the children used to play in the afternoon for the growing of grain and vines. Two rectangular patches were picked out by the children themselves, one on the extreme right and the other on the extreme left of the field. A type of grain was then chosen that mature rapidly. Furrows for the grain were laid out in parallel lines, and each of the children sowed a portion of the grain in them. 

The actual sowing, the care required to see that no seeds fell outside the furrows, and the seriousness and solemnity with which the labors were carried out at once showed that the activity was suited to the goal intended. A little later the vines were planted. Those looked like shriveled roots and were so dry that they gave no promise of that marvel to come, the appearance one day of real bunches of grapes. The shoots were placed equal distances apart in furrows laid out in parallel row. Then we decided that it would be well to plant flowers all around them as a kind of unending homage of fragrance and beauty to the plants which one day would furnish bread and wine for the Eucharist...