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The Carrot & the Stick: Homily for August 7, 2016

Photo Credit: By Neoclassical_Velocity.JPG: Unitfreak Carrot.svg: Nevit Dilmen (talk) Stick.svg: Nevit Dilmen (talk) derivative work: Nevit Dilmen (Neoclassical_Velocity.JPG Carrot.svg Stick.svg) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo Credit: Nevit Dilman via Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 3.0]  

Below is the written text for Deacon Pat Hessel’s homily at Holy Trinity Parish on the weekend of August 6-7, 2016 – on our motivation for living our life of faith.

Some people speak about reward and punishment in terms of “the carrot and the stick.”  They talk about it in relation to motivating people.  It comes from the image of a person sitting on a cart pulled by a mule.  The driver dangles a carrot in front of the mule.  The mule wants the carrot, so it moves forward.  But the driver also holds a stick, and if the mule stops or doesn’t move fast enough, the driver hits the mule with the stick.  In the business world, carrots and sticks are used all the time to encourage productivity.  The top salesperson might get a special bonus at the end of the month – a carrot.  On the other hand, the worker who doesn’t perform well or who misses work often, risks being fired – a stick.

Many of us view our faith life in terms of carrots and sticks.  Our ultimate carrot is, of course, heaven, and our ultimate stick is hell.  Carrots and sticks sound manipulative, but they work.  “If you get your homework done before supper, you can have ice cream for dessert.”  “If you don’t do your chores, you’re going to lose your telephone for two days.”  All of us as parents have used carrots and sticks with our kids.  They work – most of the time. [Read more…] about The Carrot & the Stick: Homily for August 7, 2016

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The Last Four Things

"Fra Angelico 009" by Fra Angelico (circa 1395–1455) - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fra_Angelico_009.jpg#/media/File:Fra_Angelico_009.jpg
“The Last Judgment” by Fra Angelico (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons) 

Let’s get the bad news out of the way right off the bat: we’re all going to die.  While we may not think about it very often, death is inevitable.  It often takes a personal brush with death or the illness or loss of a loved one to make us even consider our own mortality.  Whether you fear it or would be willing to face it with courage, you can’t avoid death.  When Christians talk about death, we are speaking of the end of our earthly lives… the moment where an individual’s soul separates from his or her body (which will decay while awaiting resurrection at Jesus’ return.)

But if we all die, what happens next?  In Catholic tradition, death is the first of the “last four things” – death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell.   [Read more…] about The Last Four Things