‘Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom’…. Fulton Sheen notes that this was the last prayer of the good thief or perhaps the only prayer he had ever said. He gained Paradise that day! Wow! While everyone derided Jesus, the word of the good thief was the only one that was not a reproach.
We do not know what prompted him to ask Jesus to remember him. But one thing is sure: he realized that this powerless man was the true King, the one for whom Israel was waiting.
His face was covered with blood, the people could not see any good anymore in the one who had not stopped seeing good, a trace of divinity, a trace of God’s Kingdom in all of them, even in the smallest, the poorest, the most sinful, the most terrible. When the prostitute came in and everyone says “She is very bad, a real sinner, “hadn’t Jesus said: “ I don’t agree There is good in her.” Hadn’t he asked Zacchaeus to come down for they’ll have supper together? Only the good thief saw goodness in the one who had done good to all. ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise.’ Jesus’ response to him goes beyond what is asked of Him. Instead of an unspecified future, he speaks of that very day: “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus knew that the promise of Paradise was something he could offer “today”. According to Pope Benedict, “the good thief has become an image of hope – an image of the consoling certainty that God’s mercy can reach us even in our final moments, that even after a misspent life, the plea for His gracious favour is not made in vain.”
Jesus, our King, May you reign in our hearts, families and in the world. We love you our Lord and King. Thank you for leading mankind back to the Paradise from which it had fallen: into fellowship with God as man’s true salvation.
~ Fr. Obi