[463] Introducing must be the first step, in order to avoid the situation of emptiness, of which I was speaking. Symbols^a have the character of opening up realities even to the most primitive mind, and they have just the function to do this to all minds^b--the most primitive and the most sophisticated. They are common to every group and age. Therefore if we prevent our children from receiving these symbols as early as they can be exposed to the opening power of symbols, then we are responsible (even if it is the best will) for having produced a vacuum. And this vacuum is hard to be filled later on. These early symbols, early payers, early liturgical experiences, early speeches about God^c and the Christ^d, which are in a very primitive form going on, have by their symbolic power nevertheless the possibility of opening up levels of reality which otherwise would never be opened.

We don't prevent our children from singing very early, and hearing music very early and considering nature very early, before a full understanding of all this. The symbols^e, in this case the artistic symbols, PRECEDE the understanding, the FULL understanding. And let me add: they precede the understanding to the last days of our life--great works of art^f are inexhaustible. So we should start with the religious symbol^gs also, as early as possible, where words and visions are given to the child already. But now the great problem arises: these symbols have altogether a meaning in the realm

of the symbolic. But the child is not able to distinguish the symbolic from the non-symbolic and takes the symbols literally, and takes everything literal, symbolic. The child is here repeating the development of mankind, as far as we can see it, back. In this development, the distinction