Episode 2007: On the Cross: You will be with me in Paradise - Part 17

This is the 17th of the last 22 statements of Jesus before His death:

(Luke 23:43) To one of the criminals crucified beside him: "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

We know there were two men crucified with Jesus, one on either side of Him. In the gospel writings they are not named but we find out in later writings that the man to Jesus’ left, the unrepentant man, was named Gestas and the repentant man to Jesus’ right was called Dismas.
All we know about them from the gospels is that they were criminals believed to be thieves.

Interestingly enough, there is a story that comes from the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. The story is that the two thieves who ended up on each side of Christ at His crucifixion actually had a run-in with the Holy Family when Jesus was just an infant. In this story, the thieves held up Mary and Joseph as they were fleeing to Egypt with the infant Jesus to escape Herod’s soldiers. Apparently Dismas bribed the other thief, Gestas, with forty drachmas to not harm the Holy Family. At this point in the tale, the Infant Jesus predicted that the thieves would be crucified with Him in Jerusalem and that Dismas would accompany Him to Paradise. This story is not substantiated as the only information we have on these two men comes from Luke’s gospel.

The unrepentant man, Gestas, mocks Jesus, blaspheming Him saying, “If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.” Dismas, the repentant man, says to Gestas, “ Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done no evil.”

Then, of course, as we know from the passage, he says to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom.” To which Jesus says, “Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.”

We now know the repentant man, also known as “The Good Thief” to be St. Dismas and his feast was just a few days ago on March 25. The conversion of Dismas should be used as an example of the steps we must take to arrive at salvation through Christ, right? We need to know we are sinners, be truly sorry for our sins and pray for Christ to accept us into His kingdom.

The Catholic Church never formally canonized St. Dismas, though he is regarded as a saint by virtue of Jesus saying he would be in Paradise with Him.

St. Thomas Aquinas comments that, “The words of the Lord must therefore be understood not of an earthly paradise, but of that spiritual paradise in which all may be, who are in the enjoyment of the Divine glory. So one could say, the thief went up with Christ to heaven that he might be with Christ.
St. Augustine wondered if the good thief might not have been baptized at some point. According to tradition, the Good Thief was crucified to Jesus’ right hand and the other thief was crucified to his left. For this reason, depictions of the crucifixion often show Jesus’ head inclined to his right, showing the acceptance of the Good Thief.
I’d like to conclude with a beautiful passage from Bishop Fulton Sheen’s Life of Christ:

“A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the Divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief's request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer:
'I promise thee, this day thou shalt be
With Me in Paradise'

Bishop Sheen continues, “It was the thief's last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Saviour.”

As we await the resurrection of our Lord, and even beyond this Easter season, can we be like Dismas? Can we recognize our sins, accept God’s will, and never question the goodness of God? Most of all, can we be strong enough to not ask God to spare us of our crosses in life but to continue to pray to God and simply ask that He remember us.

Thank you for listening.