“THE catechism is always a lesson. The Gospel is a story. Why try to teach as a lesson what can be taught as a story? A child can ‘endure’ a lesson, but never tires of stories. A child doesn’t listen to a story as we do, distant, leaving us strangers to the action: the child enters, is completely absorbed, with their imagination, their sensitivity; everything takes shape, everything comes alive for them, and then, if they are told about Our Lord, if they are told about His life, where the simple and flowery tales of the parables are woven into the Palestinian narrative, with the marvelous element of miracles, through which His Divinity shines forth, the child sees Jesus, hears Him, listens to Him, follows Him, and very soon begins to love Him; and if care is taken to direct their faith, their heart, their piety toward the tabernacle to constantly remind them that the Jesus of the Gospel, the same Jesus, is there hidden, alive in the Sacrament, with us, for us, the work of formation, of religious education, is done effortlessly. Can one conceive of a practical Catholic who has never read the Gospel? Well, that is the case for the vast majority. One could be perfectly instructed in religion simply by knowing the Gospel, because it contains all the substance of the Catechism; but the reverse is not true, because the Catechism does not contain the entire Gospel.”
— Bishop Maurice Landrieux, (1857–1926), Bishop of Dijon [Pastoral Letter]
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