The good thief stole paradise. How did a thief on the cross avoid purgatory as Jesus said 'this day you shall be with me in paradise'? My wife has challenged me with this one when I argued that most people enter heaven through purgatory.
I don’t know if this is remotely theologically correct, but I almost see what the good thief do was the first “confession” with the high priest , Jesus Christ, himself. I believe it was when the resurrected Jesus saw the apostles he instituted the sacrament of confession. So in a way on the Cross when the good thief acknowledged his sins , was remorseful, said he deserved his fate- all required for a good confession- Jesus forgave him. And since after He died, the gates of Heaven were open , he served his purgatory on the cross and went straight to heaven.
he had pity on Christ himself as he saw his suffering; I believe it would be analogous to a sincere devotion of one who contemplates the sufferings of Christ and from that recognizes his own spiritual misery.
Mother Angelica pointed out in one of her talks years ago that paradise is NOT Heaven. Paradise is where Adam and Eve were undergoing their testing before entering Heaven when they fell into sin, and the rest is history. I believe the thief who was saved by the mercy of God Himself, when he simply admitted what he was and asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His Kingdom, was a lesson for all of us. Trust Jesus to save us, and ask Him with all sincerity; along with the Sacrament of Confession and Holy Eucharist. We don't know if Dismas the thief who was saved needed purification after he died, we do know he was not lost. IMHO
I remember reading a vision by ana Catarina emmerich who said that as a child he was washed in the same river where our lady washed the infant jesus; as if this created any link between him and the holy family; I can't find a transcript of that at the moment.
The thief reformed while on the cross, he received favour, a free gift which only Christ can grant - eternity
If you want, you can learn more in The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich: And then later:
I came across a beautiful Catholic article on the good thief it was written in response to protestants pointing to the good thief as an example that good works play no role in our salvation. https://www.suscopts.org/messages/lectures/soterlecture12.pdf However the Good thief preformed, Ten good works! 1) The first good deed of the thief was to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. “O blessed thief, what did you see and what did you observe; that you confessed the crucified Christ in the flesh, the King of heaven and the Lord of all? You did not see Christ, God, glorified on Mt. Tabor in the glory of His Father; but you did see Him in the Kranion; the disciple denied and the thief cried out saying: Remember me O Lord when You come into Your Kingdom.” 2) Certainly, the thief needed to strive hard against himself in order to believe, he fought a ferocious fight against his own doubts; he fought and overcame, “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God” (Rev 2:7). St. Matthew said, “Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing” (Mt 27:44), and St. Mark said, “Those who were crucified with Him reviled Him” (Mk 15:32). Evidently, This thief had reviled the Lord in the beginning and then repented! Therefore repentance was his second good work. Our Lord said, “Unless you repent you will likewise perish” (Lk 13:3,5). 3) King Solomon said, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Prov 28:13), this verse leads us to the third good work the thief performed was the confession of his sins. He said, “We receive the due reward of our deeds” (Lk 23:41). Thus, he confessed his sins and acknowledged that the death penalty on the cross was the due reward for his evil deeds. 4) The fourth good work of the thief was to have tremendous hope in spite of his evil life. He had hope than an evil person like himself could be saved and allowed to enter the Kingdom of heaven if he repents and confesses his sins. 5) The thief loved our Lord Jesus and although he never heard the words of St. John, “Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1Jn 3:18), he truly loved in deed and performed his fifth good work was in defending the Lord saying, “This Man has done nothing wrong” (Lk 23:41). Our Lord stood alone, no one defended Him of those who enjoyed His gifts and miracles, not even His disciples or followers, but the voice of this thief came out loud to put to shame the ungrateful thousands. At this point, it is noteworthy to mention that this blessed thief, by his good deeds, became an example of the three major virtues of Christianity: Faith, Hope, and Love (2Cor 13:13). 6) The sixth good work of the thief was actually done for Virgin Mary who was standing by the cross in overwhelming pain that is best described by the prophetic words of Simeon the elder, “A sword will pierce through your own soul also” (Lk 2:35). The words of the thief, “This Man has done nothing wrong”, comforted Virgin Mary’s heart in the midst of all the reviling, the mocking and the blaspheming against the Lord. 7) The seventh good work of the thief was to declare a complete confession of faith. His said, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom” (Lk 23:42), these words imply that the crucified person is a Lord and a King, that He will be coming into His Kingdom, i.e. death ahs no power over Him, and that salvation is through this person crucified next to him. The thief declared this confession publicly, before all, without being ashamed, a matter that St. Peter and many disciples could not dare to do. He declared his faith before the people passing by blaspheming and wagging their heads (Mt 27:39), before the rulers who sneered saying, “He saved others, let Him save Himself” (Lk 23:35), before the Roman soldiers who also mocked our Lord (Lk 23:36), and finally before his fellow crucified criminal who blasphemed (Lk 23:39). 8) This bold and public declaration of faith and defence must have provoked all these people to revile and mock the thief also as they did to our Lord. This leads us to the eighth good work of the thief, which was to endure mocking and insults for the sake of the Lord, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven” (Mt 5:11-12). 9) In order to identify the ninth good work of the thief, we need to appreciate the symbolic similarity between the story of the Samaritan woman (Jn 4) and the story of the crucifixion: They started at the sixth hour, the disciples had left, and the Lord said that He was thirsty in both stories. The Holy Bible doesn’t tell us that the Samaritan woman actually drew water from the well and gave our Lord to drink, but was He simply thirsty for this water about which He said, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again” (Jn 4:13)? When the disciples urged Him saying, “Rabbi eat”, He said, “I have food to eat of which you do not know” (Jn 4:32). Indeed, He also had water to drink that we do not know. Our Lord said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (Jn 4:34). St. Augustine commented on this verse saying, “Therefore, in the case of that woman, it was even His drink to do the will of Him who sent Him. That was the reason why He said to the woman ‘give Me a drink’, namely to work faith in her and to drink of her faith”. So although the Samaritan woman may not have given Him water from the well, she truly quenched His thirst by her faith. On the cross, Our Lord said, “I thirst” (Jn 19:28) and “They gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink, but when He had tasted it, He would not drink” (Mt 27:34); He refused to drink and remained thirsty but this blessed thief quenched His thirst by his faith and good works. Our Lord said, “Whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward” (Mt 10:42) and “Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward” (Mk 10:41). A cup of water given to a little child or to an apostle will not be forgotten before God and will be rewarded. What about this cup of spiritual water given to the Lord Himself on the cross? In the last day, the Lord will say to the thief, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was thirsty and you gave Me drink” (Mt 25:34-35). 10) Our Lord said, “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Mt 24:13). Our Lord died in the ninth hour (Mk 15:34-37; Lk 23:44-45), both thieves were still alive and the soldiers had to break their legs to speed their death at sunset (Jn 19:32). So the good thief remained on the cross after the death of our Lord for approximately three hours during which his faith was put to the test; can you imagine what the other thief might have told him about our Lord who is now dead and in whom the blessed thief had hope? By enduring to the end the thief performed his tenth good work and was saved. edited to add “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.” (Lk 15:7)
