The Good Thief

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Now they were also leading out two others, criminals, to be executed with him. When they reached a place called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the two criminals, one on his right, the other on his left. ... One of the criminals, hanging there, abused him, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us as well.’ But the other spoke up and rebuked him. ‘Have you no fear of God at all?’ he said. ‘You got the same sentence as he did. But in our case we deserved it. We are paying for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong.’

“Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He answered him, ‘In truth, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise’” (Luke 23:32-33, 39-43).

As we commemorate the Cross of Christ, we reflect on the darkest hour of all creation, when total love is utterly rejected by sin. But yet, Golgotha also bequeaths us a bright moment. There's a bright moment on Calvary. Here we see a sinful man come in contact with the suffering Christ. He is met with grace, and it changes his outcome.

We are very familiar with the cross. It's a symbol. But the Roman cross, long before it was jewelry, was a symbol of execution, the equivalent of an electric chair or a guillotine.

Each of the four Gospels attests that Christ was crucified with two others, one on either side of Him. He was not crucified between two candles, but between two criminals.

Luke calls these two simply “criminals,” noting that they were led away from the praetorium with Christ.

In Mark and Matthew, they're called “revolutionaries” (Matt. 27:38, Mark 15:27), the same Greek word that John uses to describe Barabbas (John 18:40). That word can also signify a guerrilla warrior fighting for nationalistic aims, although the term can also denote a robber.

Luke 23:19 says that Barabbas had been imprisoned for a rebellion that had taken place in the city, and for murder. Mark 15:7 tells us that Barabbas was “in prison along with the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion.”

The word “thief” is not used very frequently in any of these Passion accounts. We could conclude that the “thieves” crucified with Jesus were violent revolutionaries against the Roman state and very likely, murderers.

In Our Lord's day, thieves hid in the hill country, living in caves, armed to the teeth with knives and clubs. They attacked travelers, beating them up, robbing them, and tossing them into a ditch to die.

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Our Lord describes a man attacked by robbers (Luke 10:25-37). A thief in Our Lord's day was no Robin Hood. He was feared and despised. The Romans gained public favor by bringing such people to justice.

On Calvary, the crowds probably looked at it as guilt by association— but for Our Lord, these two men are men with eternal souls. One had become hardened and embittered, but the other had an amazing conversion. He accepted his own guilt.

He said, “We have been condemned justly. The sentence we received corresponds to our crimes. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

Then he made a great act of faith: “Jesus, remember me.” Beautiful words for us to consider from time to time.

The Good Thief can encourage us. No matter what we've done, no matter how we may have messed things up, Jesus offers us hope—the possibility of a new beginning. The Good Thief could in some ways be called the Patron Saint of new beginnings.

Fulton Sheen liked to say that this guy was a really good professional thief. He was a thief to the very end. The last thing he did was to steal heaven for himself.

God doesn't just give us a second chance at the hour of our death. He gives us a second chance every day. He's ordered things so that we are invited each day to make a fresh start.

In some ways, sleep resembles death, an act of letting go which we cannot escape. When we awake, it's like birth. We gradually see a world around us, filled with possibilities. Each day we have a chance to make a new beginning.

When we dedicate each day to Our Lord, He removes the limits from our horizon of possibilities. He “makes all things new” (Rev. 21:5).

But there was also the bad thief. He explicitly asks Our Lord not only to save Himself, but to save them as well. His request is a bit different from the crowd's. The bad thief is interested in Christ's power only insofar as it benefits him: “Save yourself and us.” (Luke 23:39).

For the crowd, Christ's power is invoked to remove the burden of faith. “Come down from the cross and then we will believe” (cf. Luke 23:35). But for the thief, Christ's power is invoked for self-preservation. Neither demand comes from humility; both come from superiority, a position of judgment and authority.

Then, remarkably, the second thief experiences a change of heart. He too had been abusing Christ. But now he chastises his former compatriot—his former fellow visionary, a friend and conspirator with whom he had bonded as they plotted their uprising, reveling in the close intimacy of partners who are convicted of the goodness of their cause and for whom death is preferable to the maintenance of the status quo.

The Good Thief “rebukes” his former partner, saying, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done no wrong” (Luke 23:40-41).

We see that he realized that they deserve punishment for their sin, but Jesus did not deserve what He was going through. When an open heart is pressed and faced with trials, it seeks another way. It doesn't continue down the path that got them into trouble. And so he says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42).

And we hear no more from the Good Thief. Yet we know that he outlived His Savior, because when the soldiers come to break Christ’s legs, he was already dead and so do not break them”(cf. John 19:33).

We’re told in St. John, they “broke the legs of the first, and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus” (John 19:32), signaling that the thieves were still alive. The Good Thief was alive when Christ breathed His last, when He lifted up His eyes to heaven and spoke to His Father.

Like him, we can stubbornly entrench ourselves in our sins, knowing, but not admitting, that acknowledging them and the justice of the repercussions entails a humble turn: conversion.

The bad thief is not yet willing to face the music. Even as he hangs dying, he's focused on his own self-preservation. He equates his situation with the innocent man’s beside him: ‘We're not really different, him and me.’ He won't admit that “the game is up”—the game of his inverted self-love.

The Good Thief was the same way—for a time. But something changed. Perhaps he observed Christ's silence in the face of the mockery, the spitting, the lewd soldiers casting lots for His garments. Perhaps he was struck by that silence, just as it perturbed an uneasy Pilate and enraged Caiaphas.

Jesus kept silent. Jesus autem tacebat.

Possibly he'd been coaxed into the revolution in the first place. It only needed a good example of one witness to shake him out from his sinful stupor.

And then, like lightning, he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Your kingdom?

He looked across at Our Lord and he didn't see a criminal being crucified like them; he saw a king. A crown of thorns had become a royal crown. The nails in His hands had become a scepter with which He reigned. And the cross of wood had become His throne from which He reigned.

He saw a completely different reality, signaling to us that when we look at situations with a supernatural outlook, very often we get a very different picture, and often that picture is the truth.

This beautiful statement of his is quite astounding. All the disciples of Our Lord, or most of them, have fled, or they've lingered disillusioned at the margins of the crowd. Only Our Lady, St. John, and Mary Magdalene, and a few women are there (John 19:25).

The hopelessness of the disciples and apostles is echoed by the men on the road to Emmaus. “They crucified him, but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:20-21) They’re crestfallen.

But here on Calvary, to one side, a fellow condemned man, life ebbing out of him, looks across and sees, not another dying man, but the Messiah Himself. Somehow he understands that Jesus is not an imposter and that he will still receive the kingdom that belongs to the Messiah.

The Good Thief on the cross believes; his prayer to Our Lord is bursting with faith. He has more faith at that hour than any other human observing this gruesome scene.

Jesus answers him, “I tell you, in truth today you will be with me in paradise.”

Our Lord speaks in short increments of time. He doesn't say, ‘Maybe in a few months or a few years’ or ‘When I examine your case or I calculate all the evil that you've done.’ “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Our Lord gives him a wonderful promise: presence with Christ in paradise, that for which we all yearn. The English word “paradise” is a translation of the Greek word parádeisos, which comes from an old Persian word meaning “enclosure.” In the old Greek version of the Old Testament, it's a word that's used especially for the Garden of God in the creation story (Gen. 2:8-10, 15).

The Judaism of Our Lord's day equated paradise with the new Jerusalem, and saw it as the present abode of the souls of the departed prophets and patriarchs, the elect, the righteous.

In the New Testament, the word paradise is used three times (Luke 23:43, 2 Cor. 12:3-4, Rev. 2:7). And so those words of Our Lord, words of encouragement to the Good Thief on the cross, have been a great encouragement to Christians down through the ages.

“This day you will be with me in paradise.”

God the Father blessed His Son with this strange companion during His last hours—a believer, and a very strong believer at that, in spite of all of the evidence.

Our Lord had often been almost scandalized by the unbelief that He saw around Him. He said that His disciples themselves sometimes exhibited little faith. “Oh, man of little faith”(Matt. 8:26). Jerusalem as a whole doesn't realize “the hour of its visitation” (Luke 19:44).

But occasionally, Our Lord encounters great faith. The Roman centurion tells Him that He doesn't need to physically come to heal his servant; all He had to do was speak the word and he has the authority to have it accomplished. Our Lord is amazed: “I have not found such great faith even in Israel”(Luke 7:2-10).

Teachers who teach different classes find it enormously encouraging when he teaches something and a student grasps what the teacher is trying to communicate. Success! Even if many in the class fail to understand, the prized student understands and that brings great satisfaction.

The centurion is one of those prized students. The Good Thief on the cross is another. Neither of them is acceptable to the Jewish religious leaders—one a Gentile, the other a criminal. But both have great faith and both bring great joy to the heart of Christ.

Our Lord on the Cross is forsaken, or seems to be forsaken, even by the Father: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46)

God is always there. God the Father is always with you. Christ is speaking in His human nature as “He bears the sins of the transgressors and takes on Himself the wrath and punishment of God that makes us whole,” we're told in Isaiah (cf. Isa. 53:5).

But He doesn't die alone. The Father gives Him a believer to be with Him, a believer with mighty faith, a believer who can look past the raw wood and the nails and the blood, to the heavenly kingdom that Jesus will inherit. He's a believer who wants ‘in.’

Jesus answers him as life on earth wanes, “Yes, you will be with me there today in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

The Good Thief is not seeking redemption, but only asks that Jesus would remember him. He comes to believe that Jesus is king based on the fact that He says He has a kingdom. He doesn't ask for much, maybe because of his past.

He does not yet understand the grace of God. But Jesus responds with an affirmation, a fact that on this very same Friday, “You will be with me in paradise.”

Jesus is being crucified by choice. This is how He exercises His freedom to choose, and He chooses to save. He chooses to open the doors to eternal life.

The Good Thief has a great faith by which he believed in Christ as the king of kings. Although all he could see was a crucified thief. He had great hope, by which he sought from Christ to be admitted into His kingdom. Hope in his dying moments. Yet love by which he rebuked the blasphemy of his companion.

St. Gregory the Great says, “He openly confessed and defended the innocence of Christ against the Jews and against his most bitter enemies. All the others, even the apostles themselves, fled for fear and deserted Him. His confession of faith, therefore, was heroic.”

St. Gregory says, “On the cross, the nails fastened his hands and feet, and nothing of him remained free from punishment but his heart and his tongue. God inspired him to offer the whole to him of that which he found free in himself, to believe with his heart to righteousness, and to confess with his lips to salvation.”

In the hearts of the faithful, there are, as the apostle testifies, three chief virtues—faith, hope, and charity—all of which the Good Thief filled with sudden grace, both received and preserved on the Cross.

We also learn that there's always room for righteous correction. The Good Thief tried to correct his accomplice: “Don't you ever fear God since you are undergoing the same punishment?” You disrespect God because you are not decent enough to respect a dying man.

Just before this, the Good Thief had played a part initially in the bad-talking towards Our Lord, which He now tries to correct. The bad thief, in his last moments of life, while he's fighting for the ability to breathe, chooses to use his breath to challenge another dying man.

It is head-shaking territory until we realize that we do the same. We could be breathing our last breath on this earth and instead of choosing life with God, we choose pain.

“Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us” (Luke 23:39). This thief is troubled in the fact that he chooses an inward focus instead of an outward one. He seeks to save his own skin.

As we move towards Holy Week, we could think that the day that Jesus was hung on a cross, He chose to be in that position for each one of us. He chose to hang between two criminals, as if He were one also.

He knew that we would be in sin, and yet He endured so that we could endure. He understands that our hearts have strayed from God. He knew that we would at some point believe the lies of the adversary.

But God has given us a path back to the peace and providence of the Garden of Eden, a paradise where God provides and the worries and cares of humanity disappear.

We could also remember that while this conversation with the Good Thief was taking place, Our Lady was there at the foot of the Cross. She heard this conversation.

As with so many other things, she must have “pondered it carefully in her heart” (Luke 2:19), and also its great significance. There must have been a joy that radiated from her heart because a soul had been saved.

We could ask Our Lady that we might stay very close to her these days—these days when she's going to keep the faith of the apostles alive.

She's going to bring them back also to make a new beginning. She's going to be the center of the Church. She's going to keep the faith of the Church burning through Holy Saturday. She's going to earn her place very much as the co-Redeemer.

Mary, help us to understand this great role that you are playing.

We ask Our Lady for those graces to accompany her during these days, and to help us to go a little deeper into the great messages that these days have for us in contemplating all the scenes of the Passion.

Mary, you whose heart was pierced by a sword (cf. Luke 2:35), help us to go deeper into all these events that the Church places before us to contemplate these days.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GD