The promise that Jesus made to the repentant thief, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” is the same promise Jesus made to each one of us, but unlike the thief we do not know the hour or the day so we had better be prepared by leading righteous lives and obviously the way to do that is by living the gospel each and every day. It sounds simple, but we all know how difficult it can be.

The gospel does offer us insight—even here Jesus was having the worst day imaginable, in deed the last day of his life. The rulers and soldiers sneered and jeered at Jesus, but in the midst of all that abuse Jesus found time to embrace the repentant thief.

Sometimes we get carried away in bad language and rotten attitude because somehow life has been unfair to us. When that happens, I would remind anyone to read the story of the Passion of Jesus Christ. It is instructional and enlightening about the importance of grace, dignity and patience during life’s difficult moments…a message we all need to learn over and over.

In Christ,