Good evening, dear friends. ............................................................................................................ I promised another "installment" on the seven last words of Jesus. Here are some reflections on his second statement, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." Luke 23:34.............................................. This pitiful thief in his dying moments recognizes Jesus as a King, humiliated and powerless though he be. What this implies is that Jesus promises us that we will attain happiness, that it is going to happen. Every human being as a child of God is destined for such and all the powers that threaten this ending of our journey will not prevail. Happiness is not an emotion that we may or may not have. It is being alive. We will attain this as our destiny and nothing can stop that because of who Jesus is. There is no power anywhere that is able to contradict or prevent that, not even our physical, earthly death, whether it be peaceful or tragic and violent. We live in a society that is so preoccupied by the search for happiness. We live in dread of all that might threaten that happening: loneliness, the collapse of relationships, failure, poverty, disgrace. This statement of Jesus allows us to rejoice because of who Jesus is and because of his reassurance to the thief and, by implication, to any of us who trust Jesus. We simply need to receive this gift when our time comes to receive it................................................................. The Gospel text actually does not say Thief when describing the two on either side of Jesus, only that they were "wrong-doers." I suppose that makes it easier for us to identify with this wretched man. Still, it makes much sense to refer to him and the other as thieves since at least this one of them knew how to get hold of what is not his. He pulls off the most amazing theft in history. He gets Paradise without paying for it. As do we all. We just have to learn how to accept gifts.......................................... God is throwing happiness at us all the time We have to learn to keep our eyes open and our hands too so that we can catch it when it comes, like a ball thrown to us in a game. In a true sense, we are being bombarded with God tossing happiness at us, if only we can be quick-eyed enough to spot and catch it......................................................................................................... Let us look a little deeper at what is this happiness. Some people have a really poor, shallow sense of what constitutes happiness. So let us look deeper. The Gospel's description of the baptism Jesus underwent at the hands of John the Baptist is described as a profound soul-stirring moment for Jesus. He "heard" God saying, You are my beloved in whom I am well pleased. This very human moment for Jesus, encountering His heavenly Father loving him so much, reflects the heart of the life of the Triune God, the Father's delight in the Son and in turn the Son's delight in the Father; that ongoing life of complete mutuality is the Holy Spirit. A 14th century Dominican mystic, Meister Eckart describes the joy of God in this holy exchange among the persons of the Trinity to be like the exuberance of a horse that gallops around the field, kicking up its heels in great delight. He says the Father laughs at the Son and the Son laughs at the Father, and their laughter brings forth pleasure and that pleasure brings forth joy, and that joy brings forth love. Wow!! All of what Jesus is about, according to all four Gospels, is that we are invited to find our home and joy in that happiness of God. God says to each one of us: I am so glad you are. My plans for the world would not be complete without you. I want you to be part of my joy, of my life." This frees us to be in God's unconditional acceptance with all of our unfinished business, with our weaknesses and failures. So, in a real sense, we are no different than that good thief, with the opportunity to "steal" heaven, so to speak, yet really it being offered to us freely and without cost, before we would even think of stealing it.....................................................So God takes pleasure in all we are. This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ. He eats and drinks with tax collectors and the prostitutes of his day, those considered the scum of his society. Until we know this first and most important truth, then nothing else can be understood. We will never be really happy until we know this in the depths of our being. Do you wonder why so many people do not seem to be happy???................................................................................................... This happiness we are talking about is compatible with sorrow. All the most joyful saints also had their times of sorrow. Francis of Assisi was a man filled with this joy, yet he bore in his body for the last two years of his life the stigmata, i.e., the five wounds of Jesus. What a profound mystery. I cannot help but think many women who have born children know what I am talking about when they see in their own bodies the price they have paid to have children and raise them.................................................................................................... So happiness means that we share God's delight in humanity. Like God, we choose to be invested in life, not in a narrow focus of seeking our own personal welfare and the false sense of happiness it gives us after promising what only God can give. This means we have to share in God's sorrow as well at the sufferings of his sons and daughters. We cannot have one without the other. Sorrow hollows out our hearts so that there is space in which God's happiness and joy can dwell. The opposite of happiness is not sadness but being stony hearted, refusing to let ourselves be touched by other people. It is putting on armor that protects us from being involved and moved, being too busy to notice. To be happy, we have to be vulnerable, to be willing like God to get involved in what often is life in all of its messiness and problems and feeling overwhelmed at times. Happiness and sorrow free us from getting trapped in our own little, ultimately boring world, our self-made hell. The good thief chose in his finest moment to trust the person of Jesus and now lives forever in the resurrection. I truly look forward to meeting him someday on the other side and hear the details of his story leading up to that amazing final moment of his life. The meaning of our lives is something else, isn't it!!..................................................................................................... Bernie Owens