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Religious Instruction: An Experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Christopher Ingram O.P.
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The purpose of this article is to describe a course of religious instruction I have been trying out with boys from seven to twelve years old who attend non-catholic schools, and who visit me once a week. It seemed worth while to make it more widely known in this way, in case others, might like to make use of it in some way, or at least to suggest ways of improving it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 18 , Issue 208 , January 1964 , pp. 281 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © 1964 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Stories of child martyrs are particularly appealing. I suggest the story of St Tarcisius (August 15th) and of Sts William of Norwich (March 24th) and Hugh of Lincoln (August 27th), (the latter two being shorn of the idea of Jewish ritual sacrifices). The story of St Hugh is told delightfully in Chaucer's Prioress’s Tale. And brief summaries of all three are given on the relevant dates in Butlers’s Lives of the saints.

2 For a good book on the early Christian background see Michael Gough, The Early Christians London, 1961.

3 Most children are acquainted with the idea, if not the word, of initiation since they have their own rites of initiation into gangs etc. So the idea of Christian initiation is particularly appealing to them.

4 Ellard: Christian Life and Worship New York, Bruce Publishing Co. 1934. (Easily obtainable in England).

5 Cyril of Jerusalem: Catechetical lectures, Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers New Series Vol. 7. Six of the twenty-three are edited separately by F. L. Cross: St Cyril of Jerusalem's Lectures on the Christian Sacraments. London, S.P.C.K. 1951.

6 J. Daniélou; The Bible and the Liturgy. Originally published in America 1956, but I think it is now obtainable here.

7 Eve Lewis: Children and their Religion. Sheed and Ward Stagbooks. Particularly Part one, and chapters 7 and 8.

8 I. Schuster: The Sacramentary Vol. 2 pp. 122-134. Burns Oates 1925.