When Jennifer Bell first noticed her two-year-old son praying silently on his own, she realized something profound: he already had a spiritual life she knew nothing about.
“That moment changed everything for me,” Bell told parents gathered at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre in Vancouver. “I understood then that my role wasn’t to give him faith. He already had a relationship with God. My job was to protect and nurture it.”
Bell, a longtime catechist with the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS), was speaking to parents at Listening to God with Babies, Toddlers, and Children, part of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Association of Canada’s National Conference, being held in Vancouver this year.
The conference brought together clergy, catechists, and parents from across the country to explore how children encounter God and how parishes can nurture their spiritual lives. A special morning session for priests, The Child in the Church: Rethinking Religious Education, invited clergy to reflect on how Catechesis of the Good Shepherd can strengthen parish life and foster lasting faith in young families.
Bell’s Listening to God event began with Mass at Holy Name of Jesus Church before moving to the pastoral centre for brunch and a workshop, where Bell shared how even the youngest children can encounter God deeply and authentically.
While their parents listened to the talk, the children were able to participate in CGS activities and games.
Based in California, Bell has served for 29 years as a catechist. She told parents that she and her husband, also a teacher, were first drawn to the program because of their own children’s hunger to know Jesus. “They were asking for something we couldn’t give with words alone,” she said.
Her discovery that toddlers and even infants possess an innate spiritual awareness has shaped her decades-long ministry. Bell told the Vancouver audience that children’s prayer is often simple and direct, unburdened by the abstractions adults tend to impose. “They pray to the root of things,” she said. “We adults are the ones who complicate it.”
In the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, this spiritual life is nurtured through reverent, hands-on engagement in an atrium, a calm and beautiful environment designed “for their success.” There, children learn to handle sacred objects with care, listen to Scripture, and participate in processions that mirror the liturgy.
“They love Scripture. They love the Bible,” she said. “Modelling is everything. If we slow down and turn the pages gently, they sense the holiness of it.”
Bell encouraged parents to bring that same intentionality into their homes, perhaps by creating a small “prayer table” where children can encounter God through light, symbols, and stillness. “Even at home, they can live their faith through movement and touch,” she said.
Her message challenged parents to see themselves not as teachers but as companions in faith. “They lead us spiritually,” she told the group. “Our task is to prepare the environment, to observe them, and to learn from their way of being with God.”
For Bell, the experience of her own son’s hidden prayer life remains a guiding truth. “That day, I realized the Holy Spirit was already at work in him. He was closer to God than I understood. It was a call to humility — and to wonder.”
