Abstract
This study concentrates on the impact of this major symbol on teenagers, as may be perceived in the religious context through free associations and impromptu stories, and in the religious context through biblical and liturgical references.
The sampling was done according to three variables (sex, age, school) and hoped to reach the highest degree of homo geneity concerning life environment and curricula. For computational reasons, 400 answers were examined so as to have 200 for each series.
The aim of this paper is to introduce briefly our findings, taking into consideration the two variables, sex and school. The prospections of the secular context through the analysis of free associations and impromptu stories reveal, from the point of view of sex, that boys experience the world of things as means or obstacles. Girls, on the other hand, being more sensitive to the surroundings and aesthetic overtones perceive the world as values and enter the symbolic domain more easily. As far as ' school ' is concerned, it appears that the evocation of the Fire Symbol is experienced by students according to the characteristic trends of each set up.
In the religious context one sees that in general teenagers have a better knowledge of the Bible than of the Liturgy. Courage and strength being attractive, boys refer to « power theophanies » while girls stress the quality and depth of theophanies which may be termed « personal and intimate ». They know the liturgy better and are touched by the words of the liturgy, whereas the boys lose themselves in the rite itself and its materiality. As for the educational variable, the biblical and liturgical culture of state school students is characterised by a statistically broader amplitude. The pupils of the denominational network seem to be more under the influence of a primary-school-level catechesis.
Comparison of the two contexts : The symbolic structure in tegrates the same harmonics in both contexts. On the contrary, the choice and polarization of the harmonics differ. The religious overdetermination smoothes out the sexual and educational differential stresses which come out in the natural context.
Conclusion : In our contemporary culture, the young are alive to symbols. The Firc Symbol, in the Bible as well as in the Liturgy, has a powerful and positive impact, but its resonance is relative to various stresses in both contexts. secular or religious.