Thought For The Day
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Minor quibble: the command to baptize all nations was given by Jesus at or before the Ascension (not Pentecost), which, of course, also had not happened yet when the Good Thief was crucified.
I always found the good thief faith affirming. Which one of us wouldn’t change places with him to hear directly from the lips of God himself that we are saved and would be in paradise?
Christ established a Church in order to establish an ordinary means by which we may be saved. It does not prevent Him from using extraordinary means when He, in His wisdom, decides it is right.
No one taken up with Him in the Harrowing of Hell were baptized, neither was the thief St Dismas., yet he commanded His disciples to baptize.
He also told them the parable of the man who came to the wedding without a wedding garment, which did not go well.
Lesson here rely on the ordinary means provided through the Church and trust that Christ will look out for you in extraordinary circumstances.
“A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise.”
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (Life of Christ)