Pojęcie modlitwy u katechizowanych

Abstract

In the article the problem of the notion of prayer that the catechized people have was undertaken in a theoretical-empirical way. First, against the background of religious education the issue of teaching children to pray was discussed. The need was stressed to teach praying at kindergarten or even earlier, by the parents’ example. Teaching to pray should be linked to education in faith and to liturgy. Theological and anthropological approaches to prayer (according to W Albrecht - the levels of prayer) were reminded; it was stressed that it has elements that can be taught and mysterious ones, as it is both God’s and man’s work. The notion of prayer in the Catechism o f the Catholic Church, as God’s gift, a chance for covenant and communion between man and the Creator, was shown. From the catechization program the notion of prayer was reminded. In the empirical part the learned definitions of prayer (most often the answer was that it is a conversation with God) and personal approaches (which were less frequent but more diversified) were presented on the basis of responses to two selected questions (from studies of 1300 subjects attending primary schools and 441 attending secondary ones).