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A quick note at the beginning of this post- for my teaching of the 10 Commandments, I am following the list from Exodus Chapter 20 that the Catholic Church uses. Because the Catholic list includes not making a graven image as part of the 1st Commandment, the lists are slightly different and the numbering is off. Our list separates coveting a neighbor’s wife and goods, so there are still 10. So if you follow the other equally good list of commandments, these ideas would best fit the 3rd Commandment.
So we started our study of the 2nd Commandment the same way as we did the 1st: by writing the commandment at the top of a T-chart: You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain. Then, using common sense and The Catechism of the Catholic Church we filled in our charts with ways to keep and break the commandment.
Next we did an exercise that I had adapted from Fr. Bill Watson’s Forty Weeks: An Ignatian Path to Christ with Sacred Story Prayer (Contemporary Art Second Edition) (Contemporary Art Edition) * which I wrote about in the Summer Spirituality Series. (You can read that post here.) During that process, Father encourages readers to find the name of God that most speaks to them, and then to use it in their prayers. When my women’s group was working our way through the book, I discovered that “Lord of all Hopefulness” was the name of God that I felt called to use in prayer. The title for God comes from one of my favorite hymns.
In a much more abbreviated and student friendly version of the task, students used the 2nd commandment reflection and art page to help them determine the name of God that most spoke to them. Then, we figured the best way to venerate the name of the Lord would be to make art celebrating the name. The students blew me away with their art and creativity. We also spent some time the next day in the adoration chapel at church and prayed writing prayers using those names for God. A few of the students told me it was one of the more meaningful assignments they had done in religion, which made me really happy.
Enjoy some student artwork, pictured below.
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