My 8 year old grandson likes historical comics. I’ve already bought those of Napoleon, Alexander the Great and other characters that I didn’t always see as role models, but go figure. If he wants to form an idea for himself, he must know them.
In front of his four-hour dinner with me last week, he confided to me that his idea was made up and that he did not believe in God. Huge assertion! I envy him with so much certainty.
Too bad for him, I decided for Christmas to buy him a comic book on the life of Jesus, question that he knows at least the origin of the holiday that he awaits with excitement. So I went to my favorite Renaud-Bray and asked the young person in charge of children’s literature if she had the desired object. She looked at me completely taken aback. “Yes, yes, you know, a Nativity story or a contemporary biography of Jesus. As she seemed visibly dumbfounded, I asked her, “Do you know Jesus well?” I felt I was touching a nerve and the answer was unclear.
She directed me to the spiritual island where I discovered with delight All about tarot, The mineral bible and Life explained by the cards. We didn’t understand each other.
My wife is a volunteer guide at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and she was recently guiding a group of 5e secondary to whom she presented a Descent from the Cross. A student asks him point-blank to explain to him who the characters he obviously didn’t know were.
I vaguely feel that we are in the process of losing certain bearings. I am not talking about faith or religious beliefs, but about the founding universal knowledge of the West over the past two millennia.
I heard a party leader say recently that he had not attended the Mass of Pope Francis passing through Montreal because he was not Catholic. I wish him good luck when he is called upon to attend an important commemoration at the synagogue or mosque in his constituency. Unless he converts by then to one or the other religion.
Annoyed, I went to Éditions Paulines, rue Masson, where an employee of the same age as her colleague from Renaud-Bray hastened to comment on all the books on the subject according to the age of the child and the wishes. of the grandpa. There were at least thirty titles solely for children.
I fear we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I agree that Quebec has known for the last 50 years a disaffection of religious practice, but is it normal that people under 50 have no idea of their historical heritage. A student of art history, at the dawn of her studies, asked her professor at the university what he recommended for reading. “Undeniably the Bible,” he replied. Essential reading if you want to understand the history of painting. Whether we like it or not, we are the product of a civilization that we must know before casting a critical eye on it.
Can’t wait to see my grandson’s face when he opens Jesus in comics at Bayard Youth. We will read it together. Atheist, that doesn’t concern me, but never ignorant!