Sunday Homily, 23 November 2025 - Fr Paul Rowse, OP

Of all the things that the Good Thief could want, the one thing he asks for is Christ's Kingdom.  He didn't ask for a reprieve or redemption from his present fate; nor was his freedom or some privilege in mind.  He simply asks to be remembered by Christ when his Kingdom is established.  That is, even in the depths of his own suffering, the Good Thief nonetheless has sight of the eternal Kingdom.  That’s where we need to get to: no misadventure or misery should block out for us the Kingdom of Christ.  On the contrary, those adverse experiences should lead us to him.

Mind you, the Good Thief and everyone who suffers has good reason to miss Christ's majesty on Good Friday.  The Lord incurred every insult and injury which his captors could think of.  Losing sight of Christ in our suffering may be quite reasonable, but it's also avoidable, as the Good Thief has demonstrated, and necessarily so.

This world is all that we know, and in it, appearances matter much.  For example, our leaders are so bound up with making themselves seem right to us.  There is great circularity here: we judge them on how they seem to us, and so they work hard to impress us.  Around and around we go, impressing a certain image on to one another.  This is one of the inherent weaknesses in democracy: politics begins with image; influence follows mere impression.

We have to say that the Good Thief has received inspired insight into the person of Christ; he has hope.  There is no carefully-cultivated image of Jesus by which he has been beguiled.  Instead, he has seen what is.  He has seen Christ our King; he has seen the crucified Christ as King.  How do we join him?  How do we escape the circularity of impressing one another and make for what is real?  I have two thoughts for you, and you might think of some others.

The first is that we should mistrust our senses.  Our senses, our faculties are all that we have, and so we must use them.  But they are bound to this world.  And being bound to this world, they may not help us to see the Kingdom which is not of this world.  Cultivating a healthy mistrust of what we know is an important part of being able to see Christ as King at all times.  That said, we don't want to end up as hyper-sceptics, people who question everything to such a degree that they even wonder whether their parents are who they say they are.  But we need careful and wise critiques of the conclusions we draw.  That wisdom comes not only from observation but mainly from forgiveness, the virtues, holiness, and the pursuit of holiness.  These immense gifts of God enable us to perceive what cannot be simply seen.

So, we shall listen out for what someone is not saying or is no longer saying.  We shall consider how we might regard everyone if they were impeccably dressed.  We might wonder how we shall judge a difficult situation if we were feeling well inside and out. 

The Good Thief is leading us to see others as if there was nothing wrong with them based on our limited view, because that happens to be the case: what we can wisely see in each other is created by God and therefore is to be judged good.  The Kingdom of Christ is all-truth, not just the parts we can recognise for ourselves as true.  And so, we must see all that is, not simply what enters our vision.  God saw great things in you before he forgave you: this we shall see in ourselves and others, if we see more than a mere impression.

The second thing that we can do, to make sure that we keep seeing Christ’s Kingdom at all times, is to trust the cross. The Good Thief was able to see Christ’s Kingdom precisely because he was going through the same torturous execution.  Our cross of suffering enables new sight of Christ.

So, we shall trust faith-filled suffering itself, because it is the way that Christ chose to save us.  When we suffer like the Good Thief, in fact, we rise up to Christ's eye-level and look him in the face.  And if and when the cross of suffering should come, then we will know that the Lord has been waiting for us at that great and high level.

We shall spend our whole mortal lives coming to terms with the Kingdom that is not of this world.  And that's because of how we understand this world and our place in it.  But that great task shouldn’t make us shy away from the pursuit of the Kingdom of Christ.

Christ’s is the Kingdom of truth and life.

And so, we must abandon lies and death-dealing.

Christ’s is the Kingdom of holiness and grace.

And so, we must abandon all iniquity and shame.

Christ’s is the Kingdom of justice, love, and peace.

And so, we must prove ourselves worthy of that inheritance by pursuing holiness even now.

May Christ our King purify our sight and enable us to see him as he is.  May he make us love holiness that we may see others as he sees them.  And someday may he bring us all together to be with him in paradise.

Fr Paul Rowse, OP Parish Priest