A Malefactor in Paradise, whose faith and confession helped save him

[oldiesman]

Would you trade places with him?

From the Douay-Rheims Latin Vulgate:

 

  39 And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed him, saying: If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.  40 But the other answering, rebuked him, saying: Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation?

 41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done no evil.  42 And he said to Jesus: Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom.  43 And Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.  44 And it was almost the sixth hour; and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.  45 And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

[43] COMMENTARY:   "In paradise": That is, in the happy state of rest, joy, and peace everlasting. Christ was pleased, by a special privilege, to reward the faith and confession of the penitent thief, with a full discharge of all his sins, both as to the guilt and punishment; and to introduce him immediately after death into the happy society of the saints, whose limbo, that is, the place of their confinement, was now made a paradise by our Lord's going thither.