A lot happens the day we die. The lights of the dusk of this life and the dawn of the next begin to blend together until suddenly, like the breaking of the sun over the horizon, the moment comes when we are face to face with Jesus.

There is a particular kind of silence that belongs to places where centuries of prayers meet your own. At St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church in St. Martinville, that silence is obvious.

“Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

In those few words on the Cross, suspended between earth and heaven, Jesus speaks not just to a thief, but to all of history. It is the divine reply to humanity’s oldest ache. To understand it, we must turn back to the first garden, where paradise was lost, and forward to Calvary, where it was found again. This is the great reversal of the tragedy John Milton once called Paradise Lost.

In Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, the protagonist, Jean Valjean, is released from prison after 19 long years for stealing a loaf of bread and attempting to escape. Hardened and bitter, he struggles to reintegrate into society in Digne-les-Bains, France, where his status as a convicted criminal leaves him unable to find shelter, food, or work. Desperate, Valjean seeks…