Welcome to our daily rosemary meditation. Let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

Today we meditate on the Second Commandment. Do you know what the second commandment is?

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Now human character, who we are and what we become is largely conditioned by our language. That's because words are how we crystallize our thoughts and how we hang on to them.

For most of us, our very first memories go back right about to the time when we started learning how to talk.

Because before you can talk and form words, it's very difficult to hang on to your thoughts. That's also why dictatorial regimes always

work very hard to restrict the population's vocabulary because if they can reduce the words that are available,

then they can reduce the thoughts that can be preserved and developed.

Finally, the discipline of logic, which is the art of thinking clearly,

is only accomplished by using tools connected with language.

In other words, we put order into our thoughts by putting order

into our speech. We make our ideas sharp by clear definitions. We make our judgments sharp by clear propositions and we make our

arguments sharp by clear syllogisms.

What's the point of all this?

The point is that how you talk will shape the way you think

and how you think will shape the kind of person you become and how you act will determine the kind of

person you become and where you go for all eternity. So it's no surprise that when God gave his

commandments the very second one on the list had to do with being very careful with our speech.

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallow would be your name,

Thy kingdom come,

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