Year 10 Religious Education Assignment
If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive. If you want to see the heroic, look at those who can love in return for hatred. — Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Sacred Text)
Introduction
Read the book ‘Forgiving the Dead Man Walking’ by Debbie Morris. It contains 17 chapters and can be divided into three broad sections: 1 Chapters 1-6 Perpetration of the crime. 2 Chapters 7-12 Debbie managing life on her own. 3 Chapters 13-17 Finding forgiveness and grace.
Send your responses by email to your teacher hclark@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au or jlyle@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au or submit in the appropriate folder in the RE folder in the Y drive
NB - INCLUDE YOUR NAME and RE CLASS
In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun, started corresponding with a death-row inmate in Angola Prison in Louisiana. The experience changed the direction of her ministry and propelled her into activism against the death penalty.
Dead Man Walking (1995 movie) presents a look at the life and work of this nun who demonstrates the spiritual practices of listening, forgiveness, and compassion with a prisoner on death row and with the parents of his victims. This film exposes the cruelty of death by lethal injection and offers instead an alternate path based on love. It also shows that hate is the worst prison of all.
Question 1 – Read FDMW book Chapters 1-6.
What are your feelings about what happened to Debbie? (2 or 3 sentences 5m)
Question 2 - How does Debbie’s story fit with what you have seen in the movie: “Dead Man Walking”? (2 or 3 sentences 5m)
The Spiritual Life
"The spiritual life," according to Joan Chittister, "is not achieved by denying one part of life for the sake of another. The spiritual life is achieved only by listening to all of life and learning to respond to each of its dimensions wholly and with integrity."
Question 3 - What character qualities make Sister Helen Prejean such a