"Jesus Remember Me...

When you come into your Kingdom."

This is one of my favorite verses from the Bible, and it is one of my favorite hymns to sing. I am so happy these days listening to my 9yo because she is singing this with the youth choir for Holy Week and she is walking around singing it constantly. She has a beautiful voice, and I keep bursting into tears while she sings [pregnant much?! LOL!].

These are the words of St. Dismas, the "good thief", as he was on his own Cross beside Jesus on Calvary. St. Dismas is the Patron Saint of Prisoners, Convicts, death row Inmates, reformed thieves, and, oddly, undertakers. While I am none of these [yet LOL!], he is also a Saint who is very close to my own heart.

St. Dismas is the only Saint Cannonized by Christ himself - and promised Paradise that very day! St. Dismas, a man who knew he deserved his wretched death on the Cross - who knew he had lived such a life that this was his just reward. And yet... in hope, he reached out to the Savior of the world....

St. Dismas is one of my patrons because, simply put, I deserve salvation no more than He did, and it gives me great hope to think of him in Paradise with Jesus. St. Dismas is the most hopeful Saint I can imagine.

Right now I feel like a complete failure in living out my faith. Its not that I don't believe - I DO. I just lack the ... backbone? the intestinal fortitude? the Courage? to live it out. I should be trusting in the Lord, and instead - I am filled with fear. I should be joyfully open to His Will, and instead I am worried. I should be on my knees 24 hours a day thanking Him for all of the amazing and generous gifts in my life, and instead I sit here feeling worn out, overwhelmed, angry, and like withdrawing and hiding.

St. Jude is the Patron of hopeless causes - maybe he should be one of my patrons too, because I DO feel like a hopeless cause today. God is SO good, and I am so ... pathetic.

My only hope lies in that Divine Mercy - that ocean of love that is the heart of Jesus Christ - only through my hope in that can I bring myself to even breathe the prayer:

"Jesus remember me, when you come into your Kingdom....."