“Boggles” seemingly an understatement.
The children and the story of Fatima, particularly the prophecies of the 20th century and the visions of Hell, have always put a little spike of fear into me.
I used to teach in a Catholic school and I related the Fatima narrative to my 5th and 6th graders and told them how I could not help but notice how our religious books were thoroughly and completely devoid of the topic “Hell”.
I know that my God is a kind and merciful God, but I couldn’t help but make sure that I gave my students a little “hell”.
I'm glad that you did. CCD teachers are the last line of defense against banal religious ed. We're homeschooling, and our curriculum is suffused with Church teaching, but, out of respect for our priest, I thought I'd put my girls through CCD prior to receiving the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Sadly, it doesn't seem that a lot has changed since I got the "don't litter" CCD of the early '70s.