The Gospel According to Saint Thug, Guy Gilbert

"Don't forget the criminal who repents on the cross. Christ's last glance is for him: an extraordinary glance! The famous Good Thief converts, and the Lord tells him that he will be in the Kingdom of God that very evening. Of all the characters in the Gospel, he is the only one to whom Christ promised paradise. He was a criminal. He became a saint. Christ's love goes out to our brothers and sisters who suffer. He obliges us to meet them, to support them, to love them." It is the figure of the Good Thief, the "saintly delinquent" of Golgotha, that allowed Guy Gilbert to read the Gospel differently, one that considers Christ to be on the side of the losers. Driven by the certainty that every human being, whatever their actions, retains within them an intact "crystal part," he has been able to exercise his priesthood for forty years in the heart of a world of unimaginable violence, which generally leaves little room for hope. Guy Gilbert offers a personal view of humanity. By commenting in this book on more than seventy excerpts from the accounts of Christ's life, he allows us to delve into the heart of his spiritual experience and become aware of the richness and striking relevance of the Gospel.