"Today you will be with me in Paradise."
These words bring us to a moment when we encounter one of the grand mysteries of our faith. When we hear these words of response from a dying Jesus, most Christians latch on to them because they are words of hope spoken to all sinners. They are words of promise to the sinner in each of us. Jesus gives a promise to a seeming stranger, someone so different from himself, that humanity has given the unusual appellation, "the thief who stole heaven." This is Dismas, the convicted thief.
To carry forward a thought from the reflection on the first word, we should see Dismas as a man who thwarted God's plan, God's relationship with humanity. His life of thievery broke the promise of all things being good in the lives of those from whom he stole. His life was a challenge to God's seventh commandment: "You shall not steal" (Exodus, 20:5). Thievery was quite commonplace in Jesus' times. It is a sin that continues in our times under many guises. Yet, it is to the petition from this thief that Jesus bestows what all sinners ultimately hope to achieve: Jesus beatifies this criminal in his final moments of life. "Today you will be with me in Paradise." What, we can ask, was there that brought a recognized criminal, a recognized sinner, to speak his request for a place in "your kingdom"? There must have been something in his heart that led him to be so different from the other criminal on the third cross. History does not afford us a genuine answer, a factual answer.
However, Fr. Cisserio turns our thoughts to an apocryphal story or two that truly has no verification in truth but that Christians in the early centuries used to bring comfort to themselves and to further the presentation of Jesus as a sign of God's love for all humankind. Perhaps there is a smidgen of truth ... at least there is something in the story that makes us latch on with hope that comforts our own hopes and spirit.
This is the story. At some point in his early years, Dismas had the opportunity to meet or come to know the Holy Family. There seems to have been something in the relationship between Mary and Jesus that captured the apparent coldness, love-starved heart, of Dismas. It was something that he never forgot. Despite his life of sin, there was at his final moments of life a memory of what he felt when he met Jesus and Mary that moved him to petition forgiveness. Mary, herself, may have sought his recognition by her dying son. Nonetheless, here we are reminded that at some moment, in some place, others are praying on behalf of sinners, on our own behalf. We might recall for a moment the number of priests, sisters and brothers who answer God's call to the cloistered life. In their monasteries each day there are countless prayers raised to God on behalf of sinners, all sinners, for their acceptance into God's kingdom. It is the same practice when we ourselves, especially in November's cold and bleak days, ask a loving and forgiving God to bring sinners to Paradise.
Is not the scene of the "good thief" stealing heaven so loved by most people because it is a clear message to us who have sinned, to us who through our evil have also thwarted the divine order in our world, that there is hope for our salvation?
Dismas' words express his desire to have a relationship that exceeds his past experience with sin, with thievery. Obviously Dismas is asking for eternal happiness, eternal peace that did not exist in his life, so often the case in the lives of sinners.
So, what is Jesus thinking when he gifts Dismas? Most assuredly Jesus wants all sinners to see in Dismas none but ourselves. Regardless of how we have turned away from God at time or how we have broken the divine order of things, especially in the lives of others, we, too, can ask "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (Lk 23:42). Despite our failures in loving God and others, we have an assurance from this exchange of words and our deeply meaningful hopes that Jesus will turn back to us and say "Today you will be with me in Paradise." Fr. Cisserio offers a 17th Century Spanish poem we might consider in ending this reflection.
To carry forward a thought from the reflection on the first word, we should see Dismas as a man who thwarted God's plan, God's relationship with humanity. His life of thievery broke the promise of all things being good in the lives of those from whom he stole. His life was a challenge to God's seventh commandment: "You shall not steal" (Exodus, 20:5). Thievery was quite commonplace in Jesus' times. It is a sin that continues in our times under many guises. Yet, it is to the petition from this thief that Jesus bestows what all sinners ultimately hope to achieve: Jesus beatifies this criminal in his final moments of life. "Today you will be with me in Paradise." What, we can ask, was there that brought a recognized criminal, a recognized sinner, to speak his request for a place in "your kingdom"? There must have been something in his heart that led him to be so different from the other criminal on the third cross. History does not afford us a genuine answer, a factual answer.
However, Fr. Cisserio turns our thoughts to an apocryphal story or two that truly has no verification in truth but that Christians in the early centuries used to bring comfort to themselves and to further the presentation of Jesus as a sign of God's love for all humankind. Perhaps there is a smidgen of truth ... at least there is something in the story that makes us latch on with hope that comforts our own hopes and spirit.
This is the story. At some point in his early years, Dismas had the opportunity to meet or come to know the Holy Family. There seems to have been something in the relationship between Mary and Jesus that captured the apparent coldness, love-starved heart, of Dismas. It was something that he never forgot. Despite his life of sin, there was at his final moments of life a memory of what he felt when he met Jesus and Mary that moved him to petition forgiveness. Mary, herself, may have sought his recognition by her dying son. Nonetheless, here we are reminded that at some moment, in some place, others are praying on behalf of sinners, on our own behalf. We might recall for a moment the number of priests, sisters and brothers who answer God's call to the cloistered life. In their monasteries each day there are countless prayers raised to God on behalf of sinners, all sinners, for their acceptance into God's kingdom. It is the same practice when we ourselves, especially in November's cold and bleak days, ask a loving and forgiving God to bring sinners to Paradise.
Is not the scene of the "good thief" stealing heaven so loved by most people because it is a clear message to us who have sinned, to us who through our evil have also thwarted the divine order in our world, that there is hope for our salvation?
Dismas' words express his desire to have a relationship that exceeds his past experience with sin, with thievery. Obviously Dismas is asking for eternal happiness, eternal peace that did not exist in his life, so often the case in the lives of sinners.
So, what is Jesus thinking when he gifts Dismas? Most assuredly Jesus wants all sinners to see in Dismas none but ourselves. Regardless of how we have turned away from God at time or how we have broken the divine order of things, especially in the lives of others, we, too, can ask "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (Lk 23:42). Despite our failures in loving God and others, we have an assurance from this exchange of words and our deeply meaningful hopes that Jesus will turn back to us and say "Today you will be with me in Paradise." Fr. Cisserio offers a 17th Century Spanish poem we might consider in ending this reflection.
O holy Cross, I have always prayed spontaneously,
and with so much faith,
do not let me die without confession.
Look!
At least I am not the first sinner who, on you,
O holy Cross,
has confided myself to God.
(La divocion de la Cruz, Pedro Calderon de la Barca)
and with so much faith,
do not let me die without confession.
Look!
At least I am not the first sinner who, on you,
O holy Cross,
has confided myself to God.
(La divocion de la Cruz, Pedro Calderon de la Barca)
