Learning from Experience: Liturgical Formation as a Central Component of Religious Education in Schools

Abstract

Religious education in schools was, for a long time, liturgically shaped until liturgical formation was no longer seen as a task of schools but of parish catechesis in many countries. Current approaches try to develop a liturgical didactic that is adapted to the school as a place of learning. Based on the confessional model of religious education in Austria, this paper shows the challenges and significance of liturgical formation in reference to Pope Francis’ letter Desiderio Desideravi. In combining perspectives of religious education and liturgical studies, the necessary conditions for liturgical formation to succeed are shown. A didactic of Catholic liturgy that builds on established didactics and strives for liturgical formation on the cutting edge is presented, adapted to the setting of schools and distinct from parish catechesis. One way of responding to the lack of experience is with the help of performative didactics to enable practical experiences that, framed in reflection, form the basis for engagement with the liturgy. Such a liturgical didactic aims at enabling competence in matters of worship, considering all people, if a renewed understanding of liturgy is taken seriously, according to which worship is the celebration of the whole assembly and therefore requires a corresponding participation of all.

1. Introduction

Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Letter Desiderio Desideravi (Francis 2022, henceforth abbreviated DD) of June 2022, has placed the topic of liturgical formation in the spotlight. In DD, he not only wants to give “reflections that can aid in the contemplation of the beauty and truth of Christian celebration” (DD 1) but aims “to help the holy people of God to draw from what is the first wellspring of Christian spirituality” (DD 61). The task of liturgical formation is, therefore, to enable all the faithful to have access to the celebration of divine worship. According to this renewed understanding, this includes not only those who preside at liturgical services but the entire celebrating community. In addition, Pope Francis reminds us that liturgical formation accompanies Christians throughout their whole lives: “For ministers as well as for all the baptized, liturgical formation in this first sense is not something that can be acquired once and for all. Since the gift of the mystery celebrated surpasses our capacity to know it, this effort certainly must accompany the permanent formation of everyone” (DD 38) (cf. Seper 2023).

If Christians of all ages are the recipients of liturgical formation, then it is worth considering how liturgical formation can function in the school context under the present circumstances. In doing so, the confessional religious education, as it is established in Austria, is taken as an example, without thereby excluding other models (cf. Seper 2021). For fundamental considerations on Christian education, reference to the relevant literature must be sufficient here (Astley and Francis 1994; Astley et al. 1996).

In Austria, confessional religious education is offered, in which the respective churches or religious associations cooperate with the state. The content of religious education is primarily the responsibility of the specific church or religion. Similar to Germany, religious education in Austria is not catechetical in nature but rather has a fundamental orientation towards pupils, aims to help form their identity and attaches great importance to dialogue with other denominations and religions. Religious education is not based on the model of a neutral study of religion but develops issues from specific denominational perspectives. The Austrian model of denominational religious education is seen as a promising solution for the future that cannot be found elsewhere in Europe, as all recognized churches and religious communities in Austria have been able to agree on common religious competencies (cf. Jäggle and Klutz 2013; van Dellen 2016).

Church services, for example, at the beginning and end of the school year and on special religious occasions, are legally protected at Austrian schools. The use of ritual elements in religious education, such as a communal prayer at the beginning of the lesson, is frequently discussed, as will be explained later.

At present, liturgical formation is no longer a self-evident part of religious education at schools in German-speaking countries. In recent years, religious pedagogics have often ignored this field and have made little effort to develop liturgical formation further. After centuries in which religious education was primarily understood as liturgical formation in the sense of an introduction to the liturgy and the sacraments, from the 1970s onward, there was a separation of ecclesial catechesis, which is assigned to the parish, and school-based religious education. Worship became “the neglected child from the long-divorced marriage of school and church”1 (Neuser 1994, p. 9). This applies both to worship as a celebration in the context of school and to the subject of liturgy as the content of religious education. “The consequence is a liturgical poverty of religious education,” laments Stefan Altmeyer for example (Altmeyer 2008, p. 192). However, there are also approaches to liturgical didactics that are worth considering (Husmann and Klie 2005; König 1996; Neijenhuis 2001; Mendl 2019; Sauer 1996). First, current challenges are presented, and the potential that liturgical formation in schools can offer is discussed.

2. Current Challenges

The first challenge for liturgical formation in schools is that it is seen primarily as a task of parish catechesis and no longer as an integral part of school education. The reason for this is, in part, the differentiation between parochial catechesis and religious education, which was introduced at the latest by basic decisions of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and implemented in the German-speaking countries, for example, by the so-called Würzburg Synod (1971–1975) (cf. Bertsch 1976–1977). However, if religious education seeks to familiarize pupils with the Christian religion, the liturgical formation cannot simply be left out because worship is a central expression of religious practice. Liturgy, as is well known, is one of the basic functions of the Church. Instead of excluding it, the liturgical formation must, therefore, be conceived in such a way that it is adapted to the school as a public place of learning. To this end, liturgical studies and religious pedagogics must work together to develop a didactic concept that enables experiences of ritual practice and incorporates a variety of liturgical elements without violating the boundaries anchored between church and school (cf. Sajak and Schulze Pröbsting 2022, pp. 1–2). Outside Europe and in other denominations, similar considerations on the correlation between learning and liturgy can be found, to which reference can only be made here (cf. Westerhoff 1985, 1994).

This already raises a second challenge. Liturgical formation must respond appropriately to the deficit of experience that many children bring with them in this area and allow experiences of worship in the classroom so that its reflexive examination has points of reference. With the decline in religious practice in general comes a deficit of liturgical experience. This needs to be responded to in a way that is appropriate for religious education in public institutions of school, and the individual autonomy of each student must also be respected.

The challenge for liturgical formation that Romano Guardini pointed out more than 60 years ago is fundamental. Namely, the question as to whether the human being of today is “simply no longer capable of the liturgical act” (Guardini 1961, p. 106). This question has not disappeared in the last decades but has, in fact, become all the more urgent. Thus, liturgical formation must also respond to this fundamental challenge by considering both the declining liturgical capacity of people today and the comprehensibility of worship to these people. A tension is therefore revealed between the desired liturgical capability of people on the one hand and the human capability of celebrating liturgy on the other hand, which must always be taken into account (cf. Kranemann et al. 1999).

3. Aims of Liturgical Formation

In the next step, the question of why pupils need liturgical formation at all is explored. The first and central goal of liturgical formation is to enable participatio actuosa. When Pope Francis recently called for the “promotion of that full, conscious, active, and fruitful celebration” (DD 16), he echoed the Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium (Second Vatican Council 1963, henceforth abbreviated SC). There, in several places, the demand for liturgical formation is pronounced and directly connected to participatio actuosa (e.g., SC 11). The liturgical reform did not make liturgical formation obsolete, but rather, “liturgical formation is a necessary contribution to liturgical renewal” (Haunerland 2005, p. 345). In the order that the congregation “should not be merely detached and silent spectators” (Pius XI. 1929, p. 40) but can consciously participate in the liturgy together as an assembly, they need liturgical formation. Liturgical formation thus enables and promotes a participatory competence that seeks to respond to the renewed understanding of liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. This liturgical formation should be performed not only through intellectual instruction but also through practical examples. Liturgical formation is thus at the service of an active, conscious act of worship by all the faithful (cf. Seper 2023, pp. 140–42).

Liturgical formation, however, not only serves worship itself but also supports many aims of religious education as well as of school in general. Liturgical teaching and learning processes include, for example, the training of perception and expression, i.e., the area of aesthetics; “liturgy as a purpose-free game” (Sauer 1982a, p. 166), which only happens for the sake of God, and as an interruption of everyday life, can present a contrast to the institution of school, which is in general shaped by output and usefulness. Furthermore, liturgical formation aims to respond to the need for rituals that exist even among young people and can also be found in the secular sphere. It aims to enable them to understand that ritual, to actively participate in it and to shape it. Liturgical formation points to the relational dimension of faith and life through communal celebrations. And—this can also be shown by the didactics of liturgy outlined here—liturgical formation seeks to complement the cognitively dominated pursuit of education by an increased inclusion of practical elements. Further learning outcomes from worship have already been pointed out by other authors (cf. Astley 1994).

4. Forms of Liturgical Formation

Liturgical formation can take place in different forms and at different levels. In DD, Pope Francis draws on the classic distinction in two basic forms, namely, formation before the liturgy and formation through the liturgy: “formation for the Liturgy and formation by the Liturgy. The first depends upon the second which is essential” (DD 34). While in religious education, the first form is most relevant, in the school context, we may encounter the second form, for example, in the celebration of liturgical services with students and teachers at the beginning or end of a school year or on the occasion of important ecclesial feasts such as Easter and Christmas. Although the two forms can be distinguished, they are closely related and mutually dependent.

4.1. Learning for Liturgy

Liturgical propaedeutics aim to prepare the ground before the celebration of divine worship. This begins even before the actual liturgical formation, and it is concerned with the theological and anthropological prerequisites. This includes, on the one hand, the discussion of the image of God, the Church as communio, and the connection between theology and doxology. In addition to these fundamental religious questions, basic human attitudes must also be dealt with. Not only, but especially for the divine worship, one must be able to give thanks; ask and share; admit to and forgive guilt; ask for and grant forgiveness; and train the senses in order to consciously hear, taste, look, touch or simply to be able to be still. All these abilities, which are necessary for worship but, of course, have importance beyond it, liturgical propaedeutics desire to promote (cf. Sauer 1982a, pp. 158–60).

With Guardini, Pope Francis states: “[M]odern people—not in all cultures to the same degree—have lost the capacity to engage with symbolic action, which is an essential trait of the liturgical act” (DD 27). According to Guardini, the first task of liturgical formation is to enable people to deal with symbols with which the Christian liturgy abounds. This involves being able to recognize symbols, interpret them and deal with them creatively oneself. “The task is not easy because modern man has become illiterate, no longer able to read symbols; it is almost as if their existence is not even suspected” (DD 44). Whether this negative verdict about the ability to read symbols is accurate remains to be seen. Humans have an inherent ability to read symbols, but this ability must first be awakened, trained and practiced. However, one does not acquire the capability of symbolism by learning that symbol A means this and symbol B means that. Rather, it is a matter of experiencing these symbols in the liturgy (cf. Seper 2023, pp. 145–46).

In addition to this learning before the liturgy as well as before the actual liturgical formation, there is a liturgical–theoretical component, which strives for a knowledge of and for the liturgy. Here, too, what is otherwise self-evident applies; for example, teaching–learning processes do not function without content, and they do not function well if they remain only in theory and do not also take into account the competencies that are necessarily connected with it. For example, only those who know traditional church services in their historical development and their current form can build effectively on this and develop their own forms.

4.2. Learning from Liturgy

The first form of liturgical formation, learning for the liturgy, leads to the second, learning through the liturgy, which is even more existential, even more life-involving and living, and even more based on experience rather than on knowledge. In this form, after adequate preparation of the participants and appropriate celebration by the presider, the liturgy itself becomes a place of learning (cf. Seper 2019, pp. 109–15). This does not happen by making it pedagogical or by turning the service into a kind of religious education class in which everything is explained, perhaps even in a question-and-answer format or as a formal lecture. Rather, it is exactly the opposite: liturgy is celebrated in such a way that it has an effect on people without having to be commented on. The Second Vatican Council already stated the following: “Although the sacred liturgy is above all things the worship of the divine Majesty, it likewise contains much instruction for the faithful” (SC 33). Liturgy is primarily a service of worship, the significance of which lies precisely in its freedom from the need to pass on knowledge, but it can also have a teaching character without degenerating into a Sunday educational event. Appropriately celebrated, it forms and shapes the people who celebrate it. According to Pope Francis, “Liturgy is not about ‘knowledge,’ and its scope is not primarily pedagogical, even though it does have great pedagogical value. (Cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 33) Rather, Liturgy is about praise, about rendering thanks for the Passover of the Son whose power reaches our lives. The celebration concerns the reality of our being docile to the action of the Spirit who operates through it until Christ be formed in us. (Cf. Gal 4:19) The full extent of our formation is our conformation to Christ” (DD 41).

Particular attention should be drawn here to the importance attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, it is the Spirit who forms man in divine worship, who shapes him or her so that he or she comes out of the act of divine worship different from the way he or she went in. The transformation in the Eucharistic celebration takes place not only in the bread and wine but also in the people who are gathered for the given celebration. It is such that “the Spirit, plunging us into the paschal mystery, might transform every dimension of our life, conforming us more and more to Christ” (DD 21; cf. Seper 2023, pp. 14–148).

For the implementation of this implicit form of liturgical formation through the celebration itself, suitable forms must be sought in the school context. While the celebration of the Eucharist, described by the Council Fathers as the “fount and apex of the whole Christian life” (Second Vatican Council 1964, nr. 11), cannot be completely excluded and withheld from the schoolchildren, other forms of worship must be used that have a lower barrier to entry and do not already “presuppose widespread assent to the Christian faith and a broad familiarity with the ritual expression of that faith” (Franz and Fuhrmann 2008, p. 184). In addition, non-Eucharistic services can also be arranged ecumenically and multi-religiously and can thus better take into account heterogeneous school communities.

The educational program following DD is, therefore, learning before the liturgy and for it and learning from the liturgy and through it. While the first form is primarily active, that is, an action that starts from the person, the second form is passive; it is about letting oneself be formed, shaped and changed by the liturgy and in the liturgy.

5. Didactics of Liturgical Formation

Because content and form of imparting, subject matter and teaching–learning processes are interconnected, the liturgical formation also requires a special liturgical didactic. A didactic focusing on the field of liturgy seeks to be more than just an explanation of liturgy or a means to stir an interest in liturgy. Rather, it encourages engagement with rituals, services, symbols and celebrations as expressions of faith, with the search for meaning and the development of students’ identities (König 1996, p. 113). In the (further) development of liturgical didactic, different concepts of the didactics of religion prove to be particularly applicable. Of these, three interconnected approaches are to be highlighted here as examples on which liturgical didactics can be built (cf. Seper 2021, pp. 201–3).

5.1. Aesthetic Learning

Religions, in general, and Christianity, in particular, are profoundly influenced by images, scents, rites and much more. In order to be able to explore this aesthetic dimension, aesthetic education is needed both in the form of an examination of decidedly aesthetic objects and, in a broader understanding, as sensory training, for example, in the form of holistic and slowed-down perceptual processes.

Divine worship has always found expression in signs that can be perceived by the senses. In the course of the centuries, a gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) has emerged, which can be explored with the help of aesthetic learning (cf. Hilger 2010, pp. 334–43). The sensual dimension of religion can be experienced through religious practice. After all, worship addresses not only the mind but also the senses of sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. It is about “discovering liturgy as a school of perception and expression of life and faith in its relational dimensions and thus as a place of aesthetic-religious learning” (Altmeyer 2008, p. 193). By considering the experiential and sensory level, the focus on cognitive learning, which also characterizes religious education, is balanced. Aesthetic learning based on liturgy is able to contrast school lessons by its formal design when it consciously invites a slowing down, a productive wondering. Aesthetic learning enables students to create and articulate their relationship to faith. The task of the teachers is to enable children to express their faith through storytelling, creative writing, praying in their own words, painting or rituals.

5.2. Didactics of Symbols

The importance of symbols for worship has already been pointed out above in reference to Romano Guardini and Pope Francis. Symbols are omnipresent; they are found in the profane as well as in the sacred realm. They refer, mediate, communicate, remind and interpret something; they are open and ambivalent and can help to express feelings and convey experiences. In common with all religions, Christianity also uses symbols and symbolic acts in its worship. In order for these symbolic worlds to become accessible, intentional engagement with them is required.

Whoever makes the sign of the cross commits a symbolic act. Easter and Christmas liturgies would be difficult to imagine without the symbolism of light, and baptism works with water as its central symbol. With the help of symbol didactics, pupils can gain access to the different symbolic worlds and be able to express themselves symbolically. Thus, symbol didactics is an important element for the engagement with liturgy in the classroom.

The didactics of symbols prove to be a suitable way not only to deal with the different symbols and symbolic actions in worship but also to understand symbols, which can also be helpful in understanding the sacraments. Just as symbols are made of two parts, a visible object and an invisible mystery to which they refer, sacraments are also made of visible elements (prayers, ritual actions, natural things, …) and signify and affect an invisible reality.

5.3. Performative Learning

Of particular importance for liturgical didactics is the approach of performative learning (cf. Klie and Leonhard 2008; Roebben and Welling 2021). Performative learning, which is commonly established in Protestant religious pedagogics, is based on a different understanding of education and worship, but, considering these differences, it nevertheless proves to be a compatible approach for Catholic didactics of the liturgy. From the beginning, among the challenges of liturgical formation today, the experience deficit of the learners was mentioned. Due to the observed break with tradition, recourse to a “religious reservoir of experience” (Roose 2006, p. 111) is no longer possible. Religious education, which was primarily conceived as reflexive, thus loses its reference. One can respond to this with instruction in religious studies that is declared religiously neutral and is content with observation and description. Another possibility is to meet the deficit of experience with performative learning. The cognitive discourse in the classroom can thus build on religious experiences by enabling experiences itself. This takes into account the insight that the Christian religion cannot be understood without its forms of performance. Through experience, a different, deeper understanding of religion is possible, which the purely discursive study of religion cannot provide. In this context, performative religious education is located between the poles of performance and performativity (cf. Roose 2006, p. 111). Performance is described following Victor Turner as the acting out of a ritual, which enables an intensive experience. Performativity, on the other hand, refers to John L. Austin’s speech act theory. According to this, linguistic acts not only state something but also set a reality. An example of such performative acts from the religious sphere is the baptismal formula, which is not only understood in a constitutive but also in a performative way.

The approach of performative learning is based on the conviction that religious education requires performative elements that make religion tangible and understandable since the plenitude of religion is lost in purely discursive teaching. The integrative effect of the performative concept can be used so that theory and practice can complement each other in religious education. Religion and its rituals can then be understood by experiencing them (cf. Mendl 2006, p. 12). A performative religious education enables, besides the orientation towards experience and process, the orientation towards the subject. Performative learning is furthermore related to reform pedagogical approaches, which understand learning not only as a transfer of knowledge but as productive acts and self-responsible learning. This didactic approach takes into account that theological reflection is always subordinate and needs the primary practice as a point of reference, so teaching does not go nowhere here, it must fill this gap itself.

5.4. Chances and Limits

When using performative learning, it is important to keep in mind not only the opportunities associated with it but also the possible risks that are connected with this concept. Thus, performative religious education finds itself in tension between the accusation of proselytizing and profanation and must be didactically secured against it. On the one hand, the possibility of a relapse into the time before the differentiation between school education and parish catechesis is seen if a performance of religion takes place in school. In addition to this danger, which is primarily seen by representatives of religious education, liturgical scholars and church representatives are concerned that religious acts could be profaned by their use in religious education because they are not performed with the necessary seriousness. Religious rituals must, therefore, be conceived as performative acts in religious education in such a way that they neither disguise their origin nor are used as mere proclamation (cf. Roose 2006, p. 114).

For this, some boundaries must be drawn. For example, it must always be taken into account that performative learning is a trial action for a limited period of time, which seeks to enable new experiences in the area of religion but is not primarily aimed at a permanent attitude of binding sustainability. At the same time, however, it is hardly merely actions that are staged like an experiment, as it is primarily understood in the Protestant approach. For example, to simulate prayer would be problematic according to the Catholic understanding of liturgy and would also not be appropriate to the intention. Rather, it would be important to provide for open working structures and to allow for a broad range of experiences in order to allow pupils their freedom of decision. It is also important to keep in mind that experimental action allows experiences of foreignness that lead to positioning, which can range from distancing to identification. This must be taken into account in particular because children without a religious confession also take part in religious education (cf. Shillitoe and Strhan 2020). It is important to balance the staging and reflection of religion. Religious education cannot consist only of performative learning; it also needs discursive elements. Performative learning is not a substitute but a complement to reflection of religion. Every experience made in the classroom must be reflected upon so that distance to the experience becomes possible. It is then up to the students what they make of the experience offered and whether they attach meaning to it. An important distinction between the catechetical introduction to the practice of faith and performative learning in school is, therefore, the emphasis and the role of reflection. Elements of religious experience must be embedded in an introduction before and reflection after. Only the combination of experience and reflection results in an experience. The performative element begins with reflection, which is followed by performance, which in turn leads to meta-reflection. The key is, therefore, to be seen in the didactic framing. An introduction and subsequent reflection distinguish a sign of the cross made by students in religious education as a performative element from a sign of the cross made by the faithful when entering a church. This framing enables the students to give their own interpretation of the liturgical action (cf. Mendl 2008, pp. 190–95, 201–15; Roose 2006, pp. 113–15; Seper 2021, pp. 203–5).

5.5. Liturgy Requires Performance

The potential of performative learning can be utilized for liturgical formation within the framework of liturgical didactics, taking into account the boundaries mentioned above. The liturgy itself is the reason why performative didactics, in addition to the other exemplary concepts mentioned here, is particularly suited to it. The Protestant professor for religious education, Christoph Bizer, states: “There are things in this world, which in their essence only open up to participation, and even then only hesitantly and with perseverance” (Bizer 2001, p. 96). He includes here not only the playing of a musical instrument but also the liturgy, which, in order to get to know it, must be performed to a certain extent. Liturgy requires practical performance, which must be adapted to the school as a place of learning. Liturgy cannot simply be divided into a cognitive and a practical sphere so that religious education could be content with enabling the learners to understand liturgical processes without trusting them to act liturgically. Negative experiences from the history of religious education have led to skepticism and caution about religious practice in religious education, while lessons in other subjects such as physical education, music or physics naturally consist not only of theoretical study but also of practical implementation. Liturgical elements as an illustration of religious practice must, therefore, be used in Catholic religious education in a form adapted to the content, the learners and the learning location of the school. Instead of abandoning liturgical elements altogether, each child who participates in class can be offered and expected to participate in liturgical elements. Those who take part in religious education also have the right to get to know the inside of their own religion, of which liturgy is a part. In this area, freedom of religion does not simply mean freedom from religion but also grants freedom to experience religion (cf. Mendl 2006, pp. 11–12; Seper 2021, pp. 205–6).

In order to counter the experience deficit in the area of liturgical practice, reflected practical elements can help. Moreover, purely theoretical teaching of information—also in relation to worship—proves not only to be less sustainable but even often counterproductive compared to the interweaving of theory and practice. It is important to remember the character of worship itself, which lies in the invitation and not in the appropriation. Thus, especially in the context of public institutions such as schools, it must be remembered that a general obligation to participate is problematic (cf. Sauer 1982b, pp. 263–65). The practice of obligatory school worship, as seen in England, for example, was already criticized decades ago (Hull 1975).

5.6. Liturgical Formation between Practice and Reflection

For liturgical formation in particular, special attention must be given to the following aspects, which are also necessary for the use of performative learning in general. The question of how and to what extent liturgical formation is appropriate in religious education is related to the question of the understanding of religious education itself. Just as the profile of denominational religious education in Austria was balanced between neutral religious studies on the one hand and missionary faith instruction on the other, liturgical learning must also position itself between these two poles. In religious education, not only are morals discussed, but ethical behavior is also practiced; not only are religious symbols discussed, but their meaning is also sensed; and not only is liturgy taught, but experimental action is also experienced and reflected. Catholic religious education can deal with the liturgy as one of the basic processes of the Church if Christianity is seen not only as a theoretical world view but in its life, practice and ritual performance. However, the ideologically plural environment of a school and the conditions associated with it must always be taken into account (cf. Blum 2004, pp. 403–4; Seper 2021, pp. 206–7).

In summary, the following can, therefore, be stated: Liturgical formation is exhausted neither in the purely talking about worship nor in the merely practical experience of rituals, but requires liturgical action that is embedded in the reflection of these experiences. Such a liturgical formation, therefore, relies both on practical action so that the discursive treatment of liturgical themes can draw on experience, as well as on phases of reflection, which ensure that the use of liturgical elements offers learning opportunities that are adapted to the school as a place of learning.

6. Conclusions

In order to make liturgical formation fruitful today, the two main disciplines involved, religious pedagogics and liturgical studies, must work together. For this to happen, fears and reservations on both sides must be eliminated. From the point of view of liturgical studies, there has been a fear of a potential pedagogization of liturgy, and from the point of view of religious pedagogics, there has been the concern that there might be a regression to the time before the achieved separation of Church and school, of catechesis and religious education (cf. Bizer 1988, pp. 102–5; Mendl 2008, p. 180).

Linked to this is the question of how the differentiation between religious education at school and catechesis in the parish can be used productively for liturgical education. These are two different approaches to the same topics that can complement each other. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the addressees of these two forms are very different: Catholic religious education in Austria is open to children who have been baptized Catholics as well as children of no religious denomination, which must, of course, be taken into account when designing liturgical formation processes. In comparison, parish catechesis only reaches a small proportion of children of this age, namely only those who specifically decide to receive their first confession, first communion or the sacrament of confirmation. The interaction between these two fields of learning, especially in relation to our topic, deserves further study.

Furthermore, liturgical formation can become an enrichment for Catholic religious education if current approaches to religious education are used. Based on the approach of performative learning, didactics of liturgy aim to achieve an interweaving of discursive and practical elements, of experience and reflection, in order to enable the acquisition of competencies that are not only relevant to the area of worship, such as the realization of participatio actuosa, but for religious education in general. In this context, neither ritual elements nor school worship services should become mere objects of observation or practice, nor should religious education become a service of worship.

If the limits pointed out are taken into account and the potentials mentioned are used, there can be a two-fold enrichment; religious education is again enriched by the manifold topics of liturgy, worship and sacraments, and these subjects are made usable with new approaches. Thus, the examination of symbols in Christian liturgy can not only contribute to the development of a symbolic capacity but, at the same time, lead to a deeper understanding of worship. The joint exploration of an artistically designed church not only allows students to develop aesthetic competencies but also allows them to experience the church as a place of worship. If students are involved in the preparation of worship in schools and are asked, for example, to formulate intercessions or to arrange the act of penance, they are not only challenged to become creative to think about social responsibility and human contingency but also to develop a deeper understanding of the structure of the Eucharist. When pupils learn about the biblical Psalms as a traditional prayer of the Church, they can also try out praying the Psalms themselves. In doing so, they not only become familiar with one of many forms of prayer in history and the present day but also learn to listen to each other while speaking together in two groups and to coordinate their speaking speed and the length of the pauses. Framed in phases of reflection, these forms of liturgical formation can be a valuable enrichment to religious education classes.

In order to meet the aforementioned challenges, didactics of the liturgy are needed that are acceptable from the point of view of religious pedagogics and liturgical studies and that are further developed and accompanied by these two disciplines.