Fowler's model of faith development downplayed the importance of personal spiritual experience; instead, he stressed the need for the development of intellectual and moral reasoning in children. In such a model, spiritual development is in danger of being conflated with religious instruction and is more likely to meet the needs of religious institutions than those of children. This author's...
Using an interdisciplinary approach and a phenomenological, hermeneutic, mystagogical methodology, this paper explores how children describe the deep fruits of meditation in their lives. Seventy children, aged 7 to 11, from four Irish primary schools were interviewed; all had engaged in meditation as a whole-school practice for at least two-years beforehand. The study sought to elicit from...