Day 22: Today you will be with Me
Luke 23:39–43
One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!”
But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Don’t you even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due
reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” He said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”
Jesus said to him, “Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Secrets of Heaven 5078.5
One who belongs to the Church knows that he rises again after death. For who does not say, when someone dies, that his soul or
spirit is in heaven, or in hell? Who does not say about his young children who have died that they are in heaven? Who does not comfort a person who is [incurably] sick or one who is condemned to death by saying that shortly he will enter the next life? And one who is in the throes of death and has been prepared for it does not believe anything different…. Is anyone unacquainted with what the Lord said to the robber, ‘Today you will be with Me in paradise’, Luke 23:43, or with what the Lord said
about the rich man and Lazarus, that the former was carried off into hell, whereas the latter was taken by the angels into heaven, Luke 16:22, 23? Or is anyone unacquainted with what the Lord taught about the resurrection when He said that God is not the God of the dead but of the living, Luke 20:38?
Reflection
What do the Lord’s words to the criminal (“Today you will be with me in Paradise”)
imply about the Lord’s love?
