November 23, 2025 | 7:00am
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” pleads one of the men crucified beside Christ in our Gospel today. Luke identifies him only as a criminal, but tradition remembers him as a thief. And perhaps rightly so—for in that final moment on the cross, he pulled off the greatest heist of all: he stole Paradise.
“Unfair!” some of us may protest. Can that really happen? You live a life of crime, but right before you die, you repent… and you are saved? Why not then just spend a lifetime in sin and simply say sorry to God with our last breath?
One flaw in this plan is that none of us knows when the end will actually come. And here’s another catch: when you realize you have one foot in the grave, will you have enough composure to think about asking God for forgiveness?
Our faith assures us that this is possible—our God is kind and merciful. But even human wisdom tells us that a last-second repentance is highly improbable. Why?
As you live, so you will die. If wealth consumed your days, it will likely be wealth that fills your thoughts as life slips away. If anger ruled your heart, anger will likely linger until your final gasp. If pettiness marked your life, pettiness will define your death.
As you live, so you will die. So how do you want to die?
In our Gospel today (Luke 23:35-43), Jesus also dies. One of his final acts is to promise a criminal Paradise. A few verses before, as Jesus is crucified, his prayer was: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” In the Gospel where Jesus tells the story of the lost son in the same chapter as the lost sheep and the lost coin—parables which end with joy when the lost is found—Jesus dies forgiving.
As you live, so you will die.
Finis coronat opus – literally, the end crowns the work. This proverb has been understood as: “The goal gives the endeavor its value.” But this can degenerate into: “The end justifies the means.” I think a better way of interpreting finis coronat opus is to see it as an exhortation: “How you end should honor all your striving; your ending must illumine all your effort preceding.” One can sputter to a stop and just collapse, or one can finish in a way that gathers what has gone before and then brings everything to an even higher level.
The end should crown the work. Is it not fitting that today, when we crown Christ as our King, the Gospel proclaims how his death crowns how he lived?
Last Friday, November 21, was the 42nd anniversary of the martyrdom of Sisters Mary Consuelo Chuidian, Mary Virginia Gonzaga, Mary Concepcion Conti, and Mary Catherine Loreto, all of the Religious of the Good Shepherd. They died when the MV Doña Cassandra sank off the coast of Surigao. Survivors of that ill-fated ship still remember the four Sisters distributing life vests, helping children put them on, and pointing passengers to the life rafts. They served others until time ran out for them. They saved others, and just like Jesus in our Gospel today, they did not save themselves.
But it was not only during that tragedy that the four Sisters gave so generously of themselves.
Sr. Chuidian helped document the plight of Davao del Norte farmers herded into hamlets in the early 1980s. The authorities during that time claimed that the evacuation was done to protect the farmers from the NPA. The farmers protested that they were being forced to relocate so that their land could be grabbed by the same authorities. Whichever side you believed, what could not be denied was how much the farmers suffered because of the lack of food, water, sanitation, and housing in the hamlets.
Sr. Gonzaga devoted her life to slum dwellers and migrants, working with both Christians and Muslims. Sr. Conti trained rural health workers to provide basic services to the poor. Sr. Loreto advocated for the rights of detainees and other victims of Martial Law until she was suspected of being an insurgent herself.
The four Sisters died as they lived. Finis coronat opus.
Your prayer assignment this week:
How do you want to die? Therefore, how should you live?
You might want to accompany your prayer with the refrain from Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga’s “Die with a Smile” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPa7bsKwL-c&list=RDkPa7bsKwL-c):
If the world was ending, I’d wanna be next to you
If the party was over and our time on Earth was through
I’d wanna hold you just for a while and die with a smile
If you want to die next to Jesus, how should you live your life? If you live your life following Jesus as closely as you can, then you won’t just hold him for a while. You will be in Paradise with him forever, with a smile.
Fr. Francis teaches Theology, Education and Scripture at both the Ateneo de Manila University and Loyola School of Theology. As a classroom teacher, he is first and foremost a student. As a professor, he sees himself primarily as a pastor.
