Who was Saint Dismas, the Penitent Thief, crucified to the right of Jesus at Calvary? His brief Passion Narrative appearance has deep meaning for Christians.
“All who see me scoff at me. They mock me with parted lips; they wag their heads.” (Psalm 22:7)
During Holy Week last year, I wrote “Simon of Cyrene, the Scandal of the Cross, and Some Life Sight News.” It was about the man recruited by Roman soldiers to help carry the Cross of Christ. I have always been fascinated by Simon of Cyrene, but truth be told, I have no doubt that I would react with his same spontaneous revulsion if fate had me walking in his sandals that day past Mount Calvary.
Some TSW readers might wish for a different version, but I cannot write that I would have heroically thrust the Cross of Christ upon my own back. Please rid yourselves of any such delusion. Like most of you, I have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into just about every grace I have ever endured. The only hero at Calvary was Christ. The only person worth following up that hill – up ANY hill – is Christ. I follow Him with the same burdens and trepidation and thorns in my side as you do. So don’t follow me. Follow Him.
This Holy Week, my 18th behind these stone walls, has caused me to use a wider angle lens as I examine the events of that day on Mount Calvary as the Evangelists described them. This year, it is Dismas who stands out. Dismas is the name tradition gives to the man crucified to the right of the Lord, and upon whom is bestowed a dubious title: the “Good Thief.”
As I pondered the plight of Dismas at Calvary, my mind rolled some old footage, an instant replay of the day I was sent to prison – the day I felt the least priestly of all the days of my priesthood.
It was the mocking that was the worst. Upon my arrival at prison after trial late in 1994, I was fingerprinted, photographed, stripped naked, showered, and unceremoniously deloused. I didn’t bother worrying about what the food might be like, or whether I could ever sleep in such a place. I was worried only about being mocked, but there was no escaping it. As I was led from place to place in chains and restraints, my few belongings and bedding stuffed into a plastic trash bag dragged along behind me, I was greeted by a foot-stomping chant of prisoners prepped for my arrival: “Kill the priest! Kill the priest! Kill the priest!” It went on into the night. It was maddening.
It’s odd that I also remember being conscious, on that first day, of the plight of the two prisoners who had the misfortune of being sentenced on the same day I was. They are long gone now, sentenced back then to just a few years in prison. But I remember the walk from the courthouse in Keene, New Hampshire to a prison-bound van, being led in chains and restraints on the “perp-walk” past rolling news cameras. A microphone was shoved in my face: “Did you do it, Father? Are you guilty?”
You may have even witnessed some of that scene as the news footage was recently hauled out of mothballs for a WMUR-TV news clip about my new appeal. Quickly led toward the van back then, I tripped on the first step and started to fall, but the strong hands of two guards on my chains dragged me to my feet again. I climbed into the van, into an empty middle seat, and felt a pang of sorrow for the other two convicted criminals – one in the seat in front of me, and the other behind.
“Just my %¢$#@*& luck!” the one in front scowled as the cameras snapped a few shots through the van windows. I heard a groan from the one behind as he realized he might vicariously make the evening news. “No talking!” barked a guard as the van rolled off for the 90 minute ride to prison. I never saw those two men again, but as we were led through the prison door, the one behind me muttered something barely audible: “Be strong, Father.”
REVOLUTIONARY OUTLAWS
It was the last gesture of consolation I would hear for a long, long time. It was the last time I heard my priesthood referred to with anything but contempt for years to come. Still, to this very day, it is not Christ with whom I identify at Calvary, but Simon of Cyrene. As I wrote in “Simon of Cyrene and the Scandal of the Cross“:
“That man, Simon, is me . . . I have tried to be an Alter Christus, as priesthood requires, but on our shared road to Calvary, I relate far more to Simon of Cyrene. I pick up my own crosses reluctantly, with resentment at first, and I have to walk behind Christ for a long, long time before anything in me compels me to carry willingly what fate has saddled me with . . . I long ago had to settle for emulating Simon of Cyrene, compelled to bear the Cross in Christ’s shadow.”
So though we never hear from Simon of Cyrene again once his deed is done, I’m going to imagine that he remained there. He must have, really. How could he have willingly left? I’m going to imagine that he remained there and heard the exchange between Christ and the criminals crucified to His left and His right, and took comfort in what he heard. I heard Dismas in the young man who whispered “Be strong, Father.” But I heard him with the ears of Simon of Cyrene.
LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
Like the Magi I wrote of in “Upon a Midnight Not So Clear,” the name tradition gives to the Penitent Thief appears nowhere in Sacred Scripture. Dismas is named in a Fourth Century apocryphal manuscript called the “Acts of Pilate.” The text is similar to, and likely borrowed from, Saint Luke’s Gospel:
“And one of the robbers who were hanged, by name Gestas, said to him: ‘If you are the Christ, free yourself and us.’ And Dismas rebuked him, saying: ‘Do you not even fear God, who is in this condemnation? For we justly and deservedly received these things we endure, but he has done no evil.’”
What the Evangelists tell us of those crucified with Christ is limited. In Saint Matthew’s Gospel (27:38) the two men are simply “thieves.” In Saint Mark’s Gospel (15:27), they are also thieves, and all four Gospels describe their being crucified “one on the left and one on the right” of Jesus. Saint Mark also links them to Barabbas, guilty of murder and insurrection. The Gospel of Saint John does the same, but also identifies Barabbas as a robber. The Greek word used to identify the two thieves crucified with Jesus is a broader term than just “thief.” Its meaning would be more akin to “plunderer,” part of a roving band caught and given a death penalty under Roman law.
Only Saint Luke’s Gospel infers that the two thieves might have been a part of the Way of the Cross in which Saint Luke includes others: Simon of Cyrene carrying Jesus’ cross, and some women with whom Jesus spoke along the way. We are left to wonder what the two criminals witnessed, what interaction Simon of Cyrene might have had with them, and what they deduced from Simon being drafted to help carry the Cross of a scourged and vilified Christ.
In all of the Gospel presentations of events at Golgotha, Jesus was mocked. It is likely that he was at first mocked by both men to be crucified with him as the Gospel of St. Mark describes. But Saint Luke carefully portrays the change of heart within Dismas in his own final hour. The sense is that Dismas had no quibble with the Roman justice that had befallen him. It seems no more than what he always expected if caught:
“One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’ ” (Luke 23:39-41).
THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT
The name, “Dismas” comes from the Greek for either “sunset” or “death.” In an unsubstantiated legend that circulated in the Middle Ages, in a document known as the “Arabic Gospel of the Infancy,” this encounter from atop Calvary was not the first Gestas and Dismas had with Jesus. In the legend, they were a part of a band of robbers who held up the Holy Family during the Flight into Egypt after the Magi departed in Saint Matthews Gospel (Matthew 2:13-15).
This legendary encounter in the Egyptian desert is also mentioned by Saint Augustine and Saint John Chrysostom who, having heard the same legend, described Dismas as a desert nomad, guilty of many crimes including the crime of fratricide, the murder of his own brother. This particular part of the legend, as you will see below, may have great symbolic meaning for salvation history.
In the legend, Saint Joseph, warned away from Herod by an angel (Matthew 2:13-15), opted for the danger posed by brigands over the danger posed by Herod’s pursuit. Fleeing with Mary and the child into the desert toward Egypt, they were confronted by a band of robbers led by Gestas and a young Dismas. The Holy Family looked like an unlikely target having fled in a hurry, and with very few possessions. When the robbers searched them, however, they were astonished to find expensive gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh – the Gifts of the Magi. However, in the legend Dismas was deeply affected by the infant, and stopped the robbery by offering a bribe to Gestas. Upon departing, the young Dismas was reported to have said:
“0 most blessed of children, if ever a time should come when I should crave thy mercy, remember me and forget not what has passed this day.”
PARADISE FOUND
The most fascinating part of the exchange between Jesus and Dismas from their respective crosses in Saint Luke’s Gospel is an echo of that legendary exchange in the desert 33 years earlier – or perhaps the other way around:
” ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingly power.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43)
The word, “Paradise” used by Saint Luke is the Persian word, “Paradeisos” rarely used in Greek. It appears only three times in the New Testament. The first is that statement of Jesus to Dismas from the Cross in Luke 23:43. The second is in Saint Paul’s description of the place he was taken to momentarily in his conversion experience in Second Corinthians 12:3 – which I described in “The Conversion of Saint Paul and the Cost of Discipleship.” The third is the heavenly paradise that waits the souls of the just in the Book of Revelation (2:7).
In the Old Testament, the word “Paradeisos” appears only in descriptions of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:8, and in the banishment of Cain after the murder of his brother, Abel:
“Cain left the presence of the Lord and wandered in the Land of Nod, East of Eden.” (Genesis 4:16).
Elsewhere, the word appears only in the prophets (Isaiah 51:3 and Ezekiel 36:35) as they foretold a messianic return one day to the blissful conditions of Eden – to the condition restored when God issues a pardon to man.
If the Genesis story of Cain being banished to wander “In the Land of Nod, East of Eden” is the symbolic beginning of our human alienation from God – the banishment from Eden marking an end to the State of Grace and Paradise Lost – then the Dismas profession of faith in Christ’s mercy is symbolic of Eden restored – Paradise Regained.
From the Cross, Jesus promised Dismas both a return to spiritual Eden and a restoration of the condition of spiritual adoption that existed before the Fall of Man. It’s easy to see why legends spread by the Church Fathers involved Dismas guilty of the crime of fratricide just as was Cain.
A portion of the cross upon which Dismas is said to have died alongside Christ is preserved at the Church of Santa Croce in Rome. It’s one of the Church’s most treasured relics. Catholic apologist, Jim Blackburn has proposed an intriguing twist on the exchange on the Cross between Christ and Saint Dismas. In “Dismissing the Dismas Case,” an article in the superb Catholic Answers Magazine (March-April 2012) Jim Blackburn reminded me that the Greek in which Saint Luke’s Gospel was written contains no punctuation. Punctuation had to be added in translation. Traditionally, we understand Christ’s statement to the man on the cross to his right to be:
“Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
The sentence has been used by some non-Catholics (and a few Catholics) to discount a Scriptural basis for Purgatory. How could Purgatory be as necessary as I described it to be in “The Holy Longing” when even a notorious criminal is given immediate admission to Paradise? Ever the insightful thinker, Jim Blackburn proposed a simple replacement of the comma giving the verse an entirely different meaning:
“Truly I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise.”
Whatever the timeline, the essential point could not be clearer. The door to Divine Mercy was opened by the events of that day, and the man crucified to the right of the Lord, by a simple act of faith and repentance and reliance on Divine Mercy, was shown a glimpse of Paradise Regained.
The gift of Paradise Regained left the cross of Dismas on Mount Calvary. It leaves all of our crosses there. Just as Cain set in motion our wandering “In the Land of Nod, East of Eden,” Dismas was given a new view from his cross, a view beyond death, away from the East of Eden, across the Undiscovered Country, toward eternal home.
Saint Dismas, pray for us.
Next week on These Stone Walls: A special Divine Mercy Guest Post by someone we have come to know well.
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Fr. G. Happy Easter Season. Be strong. Fr. J.
Thank you Father for this great Scripture class. I studied the Synoptics, but nothing as interesting as this. For many reasons that I didn’t understand, I have always been intrigued with St.
Dismas. I do believe it can be a lesson on Purgatory as Dismas didn’t steal Heaven….he admitted that he was a sinner, repented, and suffered. That is the road to Heaven. Father, you taught me how to put it all together. It is the only road to Heaven and shows me to stop bellyaching. God bless you!
I let some of my Muslim friends read your article on “Accommodations of a Garden of Good and Evil.” They still want me to stay away from the websites of the Infidels, but they no longer consider you among them. Maybe someday there will be a Muslim-Catholic dialogue for a better world. If so, you should be one of it’s moderators. This article on Dismas was fascinating.
Sr. Margaret,
Have you considered that, perhaps, Christ is calling you to another religious order or vocation?
I have found this website which contains a questionnaire to help find religious orders that are most compatible with your calling. It is http://www.vocationnetwork.org/match.
I have used it myself, and found the results to be fairly accurate. I am also 50ish… and there are orders that will consider baby boomer vocations.
God bless you!
Easter Monday and I am sneaking a moment to send you Easter greetings Father G
Full time caring duties leave few moments but you are always in my prayers. Mother has had heart problems and then a stroke and recovery is a slow process but her courage and resilience in accepting this new turn in her road to Calvary is humbling
God Bless you and yours as always
Happy Easter, everyone!
Sr. Margaret, I prayed for you at the Easter Vigil and we prayed for you in our rosary. I don’t know where you are (and since people seem to read TSW from all over the world it could be anywhere!) and I’m not sure about how these things work, but have you contacted the JMJ Carmelite daughterhouse in Elysburg, PA? They are a cloistered, traditional order. I love these nuns!
May God reward you!
A blessed Easter dear Father!
Jesus said we must take up His Cross…..what you have been subjected to IS His Passion! You have been allowed to be like Him in so many ways. Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees…..a blessing that seems like a curse. Easy for me to say but maybe not so hard for me to see who you are! To us you are the alter Christus !
Looking forward to the Divine Mercy post. I have been a part of the Novena for more then 12 years.This year as last year I will be the Lector for the Divine Mercy Sunday Mass.
God’s love to you, Pornchai,Donald and Scooter.
Your friend, Jeannie
Dear Father,
Here I am, wishing and praying after 16 years of waiting to get back behind the walls of Carmel, seeing little bits of what you have suffered these years, trying to get out of those terrible walls that somehow God designed for you. A series of monasteries closed, one after the other, leaving me out here in the world. And yes, my calling was clear, unmistakeable, a divine mandate. But, here I am, now unemployed to boot, knocking at doors of Monasteries and being set aside as “too old” at 58. I envy your interior nights of soul and agonies of spirit which have carved you and led you to walk in His very footsteps. A Blessed Feast of true Ressurection to a pastor of souls who has tasted the bitterness we gave Jesus at Calvary. All my prayers in Jesus and Mary.
Father,
That prisoner who whispered those words of encouragement to you is now a precious part of your memory of a terrible day. How you would bless him now if you had a chance. Now think of how much Jesus is rewarding Dismas for his words of encouragement. Now think of how much he will reward YOU for your union with him in suffering.
Father I pray for you. When you are having your Mass so late on Sunday nights, I am starting my day in Abu Dhabi. You are prayed for all over the world, I think.
Soon, Father, you will be free. God bless you always, Lupe G
Father,
Will you please pray for my family and my marriage the next time you say Mass? I know that you have enough to contend with on top of someone asking you for a favor, but we need all the help we can get. I will pray for you too.
Thank you,
Jim
Dear Father,
You brought us all together — this online parish of yours. I enjoy reading the post of my ‘co-parishioners’ here as much as I do yours. I learn from them as I learn from you. I receive grace through them as I receive grace through you. Everyone has something to say, and everyone is a blessing.
The comma can make a lot of difference in the meaning. I’ve never considered such a possibility as you wrote here. Thank you. I still have to read that post on Simon of Cyrene.
I read from a revelation of a mystic that all those times CHRiST was tortured, He had no feeling of ill-will towards His executioners and torturers. Something to ponder too these holy days.
Happy Easter, everyone!
Domingo
When Jesus said that “this day you will be with me in paradise” could also be the fact that the perpetual sacrafice was taking place at that moment and that was when all of Heaven and earth would become one and coneect at each mass. So each time the priest celibrates the eucharist the good thief, being at calavry is included, thus being in paradise at that very moment. So Jesus gives us an example of his forgiveness right then and there. The other is not included even though he is there also, because Jesus did not talk to him.
Dear Father,
I will pray especially these next few days that justice is done for you.
Thanks, Father, for this Holy Week entry. Certainly will make Good Friday much more meaningful.
The one phrase that jumped out at me in your entry were those words spoken by your fellow prisoner as you entered the prison over 18 years ago. You have been STRONG under the most trying circumstances. Keith and I frequently comment on how you have grown so in “Christ-like-ness” just in the six plus years that we have known you. Am sure God had you on a Mission, and you have done boundless good there in prison–but I join all the others in petitioning the Good Lord to make quick your release. I trust that as He gave Paradise to the Good Thief, He will give FREEDOM to you!
May the joy of the this season fill your heart.
AND MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND HAVE A
Happy, Healthy and Blessed Easter!
Please give my greetings to Pornchai, Skooter, Joseph, and Donald, too.
Love to all of you, LaVern
Hello Father Gordon, as i was reading the above my eyes were constant with tears. All this week have been praying for you and that justice maybe lifted soon. I know that God is present in adoration so that is what i have been doing all this Lent season.
Thank you for all of your homilies and your sacrifice. May the all Merciful God keep you safe. Again thank you. I will again tomorrow ask God and our Mother for your release soon.
Frank d.
combat vet.
vietnam 70-71 usmc
I believe all Priests are God’s Marines just finished reading (the grunt Padre) gave his life for hundred of Marines in Vietnam.
Dear Fr Gordon, thank you for sharing your pain with us in this Easter Season. The Lord asks a lot from you, you must be one of his friends! I am humbled by your courageous struggle in the midst of suffering. Thank you also for your posts, they feed me. I live in Australia and wonder if there is a way to contribute to your fund in Australia? Till next time, wishing you a Holy Easter
I believe it was Mother Angelica who said she thought that it was Mary’s prayers at the foot of the cross that led Dismas to make the statement of Christ’s innocence and asked him to remember him when he came into His kingdom. It makes sense as Mary always leads us to Christ.
May this Easter and Christ’s promises be a comfort to you and your friends, Pornchai and Skooter. Praying that joyful news will be coming soon!
Dear Father, How painful to read of your false witness and betrayal. May God strengthen you, may the prayer of the Breastplate of St. Patrick uphold you. I remember reading about the great pain St. Therese of Lisieux felt, when even though hidden away in her self-chosen prison of Carmel, a picture of her playing Joan of Arc was sent to a French newspaper writer, I believe he was, who claimed to be a faithful Catholic. When he received the innocent picture of St. Therese, a young girl dressed in her handmade Joan of Arc outfit inside the little convent, he mocked her publicly, and revealed he was an avowed atheits. St. Therese suffered the greatest heartfelt pain from this public humiliation. It amazed me that she should be so close to Christ’s own journey, when she lived in such a hidden place. She even endured with Him his public mockery. As have you. I pray that she visit you in your cell. She had a special role to pray for priests. I pray also that you can re-read her life, and join her in offering of your total self to Christ and joine with her, in her beautiful offering of her whole being as a holocaust to Divine Merciful Love. May your Prison became a Garden, may Christ inflame and engulf you in His Love, and draw you close to His heart, carrying you beyond all human suffering. You are walking His Way and will understand Christ as few can, and you are not alone. It amazes me that with His great power, when the soldiers fell to the ground at Gethsemane, He did not force them to ground when they mocked Him. That is totally amazing to me. May His Peace and Love be with you always and strengthen you,and as Pope John Paul II said, do not waste suffering…many graces can be obtained and many souls saved, when offered up.
Dear Father,
I pray for you and still hope that you will be released…
In Caritate Christi per Mariam (Mediatrix of all Graces)
A most blessed Holy Week and Easter to you, Father, and to Skooter and Pornchai as well. I am looking forward to Divine Mercy posting by your guest columnist!
Thank you Fr. Gordon for writing this column. We all continue to offer up a prayer for you Father. Please have a blessed Easter. May God continue to bless you and His loving Mother give you comfort.
Hello Fr Gordon, I shall remember you this Easter weekend,in prayer,IHS.
I am so struck by the prisoner who was transported with you, the one who said to, “Be strong, Father.” It seems a small kindness, but in reality it was huge. I have been praying for that man all day long. It makes me think of the many times I start to say something, but I let my pride hold me back or I hesitate in some way. God bless him for not holding back.
I hope you and Pornchai (and all!) have a wonderful Triduum and Glorious Easter!
Public ridicule has always been to me the worst suffering, I being a rather shallow person, a prideful person. Thanks for sharing this post and for sharing the painful part of being mocked. When meditating upon this while I say the Rosary or when viewing a film on the Passion, the sting of ridicule and mockery really hurts me. I have to think of the times I have laughed and rejected my faith, hidden the truth and hidden from it, participated in the mockery of Christ in so many ways. And as a mother too, I ponder the pain of Mary as she looked on and heard the mockery, taking in the pain of her Son. What mother could not feel this pain, for Christ, and for our own children?
Lent is a hard time for us, isn’t it? I have to become even more aware of my sinfulness, and how God’s love has saved me. I appreciate your pain Fr. MacRae, as you share your writings with us in so beautiful a way. I would never have come away from meditating on the Passion with this awareness of Dismas. I have been educated again.
May God continue to bless you through this painful imprisonment and all that entails. Know that we are with you too as you walk this painful journey, because you have included us.
And I loved what Fr. George shared in his comments to you towards the end,
” Is it not Jesus Himself who is having you share the most treasured moments of His priestly ministry here on earth, spreading these moments out over now 18 years for you?”
Mother Mary, keep us all.
Fr. Byers said:
“For myself, if I were without the grace that Jesus provides to us, I think I would have immediately followed the orders of the Roman soldiers with an almost demonically hateful cynicism for the way things are, with utter hatred for God and man, pushing Christ to the ground as I took His cross, spitting on Him, and then shoving the damn soldiers out of the way, so that I could get to the top of that skull-like rock quarry of Golgatha, of Calvary, so as to dump the cross unceremoniously, and get it all the hell over with so that I could be on my individualistic hateful way through life. That would be me, without the Lord’s grace.”
Thank you. I’ve been saying that about myself for over thirty years now. The last time I dared to utter it out loud to someone, they were horrified that I would say such a thing. Nevertheless, it is true. When I was young and stupid, I used to think I would have been Our Lord’s best friend.
I know better now.
Dear Father Gordon
Please pray for and offer up some of your suffering for the priests of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. My heart goes out to all the good priests that I have met over my 60+ years.
Hopefully all this horror will be over soon for you and the rest of the church.
Happy Blessed Easter for you and your family.
John
Dear Father Gordon
Please pray for and offer up some of your suffering for the priests of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. My heart goes out to all the good priests that I have met over my 60+ years.
Hopefully all this horror will be over soon for you and the rest of the church.
Happy Blessed Easter for you and your family.
John
“Like most of you, I have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into just about every grace I have ever endured. ”
If I was like most women, I would have burst into tears upon reading the above. Unfortunately, an abundance of tears has alluded me for about twenty years, but my eyes did fill up when I read this sentence, Father, as I relate 100% to it.
Hi Father, Just to wish you a happy and holy and very blessed Easter. You are constantly in my prayers. Courage! It can’t be long now before you are released or the justice system will be in further disrepute. The Lord brings good out of evil, as only He can. Nothing will be wasted. I am with you in spirit and prayer. God bless, Gail. P.S. My website is still very immature – while I learn how to manage it – hopefully it will improve soon.
Dear Fr. Gordon,
Well being enduring what you did when being convicted may have made you feel the least priestly you have ever felt, but from where I sit, it may have been the most priestly thing you have ever done. You could have easily sold out the truth and accepted their lie filled plea, but you didn’t.
The other very priestly thing you always do is point to Christ, just as the Baptist did, not to yourself. Any time I hear some religious leader, guru, whatever, pointing to themselves, the red flags go up and “false prophet” is written all over them.
I had heard that legend before about the band of robbers on the Flight to Egypt, but had forgotten it. Thank you for repeating it hear. I love how it brings the story of our salvation full circle.
As for Simon of Cyrene, we are told that he and his family were converted that day. I love the brief, but intense glance between Jesus and Simon once they arrive on Golgotha as it is depicted in the Passion of the Christ. You can almost see the conversion take place in that moment.
I too am looking forward to your guest’s post next week. Hmm… might you be handing the typewriter over to Pornchai? Just wondering
As always continued prayers for you and all the men there, and wishing you a blessed Triduum and a joyous Easter.
Father,
I’m sorry! Please excuse my long comment, but you’ve whooped me upside the head with what you’ve written here, and I cannot help but thank you for it. You write:
Exactly, in fact, that ἑλκύσω in John 12,32, has much more the sense of drag than draw when it comes to us weak men, so that Jesus said: And I, whenever I will be lifted up from the earth [on the cross], I will drag all to myself.” He drags us through all the hell that broke loose on Calvary. And then you write this:
For myself, if I were without the grace that Jesus provides to us, I think I would have immediately followed the orders of the Roman soldiers with an almost demonically hateful cynicism for the way things are, with utter hatred for God and man, pushing Christ to the ground as I took His cross, spitting on Him, and then shoving the damn soldiers out of the way, so that I could get to the top of that skull-like rock quarry of Golgatha, of Calvary, so as to dump the cross unceremoniously, and get it all the hell over with so that I could be on my individualistic hateful way through life. That would be me, without the Lord’s grace. [Sorry for the language, though it is somehow appropriate to what is happening on Calvary!]
If I ever were to carry that cross on the way to Calvary, eventually willingly, it could only be because I was totally overwhelmed by the realization that Jesus Himself was dragging me into this with His irresistable force of good friendship, not counting the cost because of Him having me look to Him with that command of His to take up the cross and follow Him. For myself, I would wish for any other cross than the one you mention:
I find myself cringing right now before such a scene, and then I think that, if it were me, I would find myself just wanting to get it the hell over with, not realizing that this cynicism of mine is just the flipside of cringing. With Jesus dragging me into looking to Him, then, yes, I would be right there with Him, but it would certainly be entirely His fault if I were there willingly.
Just to say, it strikes me that Jesus drags us to Himself in such a way, to be in such solidarity with Him as He is in solidarity with us, that whether we are finally a willing Simon, or finally a repentant Dismas, that we are in fact recognized by our Heavenly Father as being none other than His very own Son, the members of whose Body we have become in the midst of all this dragging, all this kicking and screaming, all this hell, all this more deeply found friendship with Mary’s Son, with Jesus.
Father, forgive me if I say this, but, dang it, stop merely “trying to be an Alter Christus”; as long as you merely try, you’ll always feel yourself to be a bit on the outs, though there is an entirely different reality playing out with you all this time, right from the beginning. Is it not Jesus Himself who is having you share the most treasured moments of His priestly ministry here on earth, spreading these moments out over now 18 years for you?
He’s the One, of course, the only One, but He does have us, even us priests, be with Him. It’s entirely His work. We just get in the way if we try to do this work for Him! Thanksgving is better than “trying.” Yikes! He’s just that good, just that kind.
And I think He has to have a great sense of humor for our attempts at trying, making Him laugh as He Himself then proceeds to drag us to Himself, watching us kick and scream in the rebellion of our trying.
Having said that, let me say this as well: It is you who have been bringing all this home to me, Father. That’s how you’re whooping me upside the head. You have my prayers and blessings.
Please, Father, send me your priestly blessing, and I will know then that I have Jesus’ own blessing straight from His own Cross.
Your brother in Christ Jesus,
Father George
Hello Father G,
At evening Mass yesterday, I was reflecting upon the call to be transparent to Christ, that we must invite Him into our darkest, most hidden corners, the ones we don’t even want to admit to ourselves much less surrender, those we naughtily cling to and attempt to engage in the pathetic self-delusion that He is unaware or at best, distracted by sins much more salacious than our own. Do we trust Him enough with our ungodliest qualities and accede to His yearning to be part of our painfully raw life experiences, as did Dismas?
It was such a blessing this morning, Father, to read of how God’s grace found you in that traumatic moment. I have been neglecting to meditate upon Holy Week passages with the personal perspective you undertook in this entry; thank you for your reminder by example.
Your plea for re-focus brings to mind Luke 17:10, “So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, ‘We are useless servants: we have done no more than our duty. ‘” It is so good that you have wonderful helpers who enable you to expand on your duty as a priestly teacher. I always appreciate how you connect the Scriptural dots between the Old & New Testaments in your posts.
May our merciful Lord pour many graces upon you (and Pornchai!) this Holy Week.
Looking forward to next week’s entry.
Be faithful, Father!