Ritual facts for kids

Matriculation at Oxford University

A ritual (or a rite) is a set of actions people do. In a ritual, the actions are important because every action stands for something. Each ritual of a type is done in a certain way. Danger might be involved in carrying out the ritual. When the ritual has been performed successfully, it is often followed by a celebration.

Rituals can mark a personal change. For example, a rite of passage may show that a child has reached the age of majority. All societies seem to have had them.

A religious rite is a religious ceremony. Many rituals have a religious significance and are part of the religion or traditions of a community. The rite signals that those who take part are members of the religion, or believers in the religion. The rite may signal status, qualification, prayer and commitment to the god or to the belief.

A rite need not be to a religion as understood in the present day. Fervent support of a sports team, or kissing the ring of an organised crime lord, or a military enrollment is equally a rite, because it has consequences for the behaviour of the person, and for their beliefs.

A ritual can also be linked to obsessive compulsive disorder, when a person believes that performing the ritual again and again is necessary.

Related pages

• Mass (liturgy)
• Ceremony

Images for kids

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  The use of Latin in a Tridentine Catholic Mass is an example of a "restricted code".

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  The First Thanksgiving 1621, oil on canvas by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930). The painting shows common misconceptions about the event that persist to modern times: Pilgrims did not wear such outfits, and the Wampanoag are dressed in the style of Plains Indians.

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  Ritual practitioner on Inwangsan Mountain, Seoul South Korea

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  The "capping" ceremony is one of the principle rites of the Confucian ritual religion, alongside marriage, mourning rites, and sacrificial rituals

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  Hindu fire offering ritual during Durga Puja in Bangladesh

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  Masquerade at the Carnival of Venice.

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  Balinese rice terraces regulated through ritual.

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  Scriptorium-monk-at-work. "Monks described this labor of transcribing manuscripts as being 'like prayer and fasting, a means of correcting one's unruly passions.'"

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  This Lutheran pastor administers the rite of confirmation on youth confirmands after instructing them in Luther's Small Catechism.

See also

In Spanish: Ritual para niños