a timid disciple, or a good-hearted dutiful soldier who hated the work
he was at, surely one of these will be the first object of Christ's
pardon; and so one of these would have been, if one of ourselves had
hung there. But when God forgives, He forgives the most ignorant
first--that is, the most remote from forgiveness--and makes, not Peter
or Caiphas or the Centurion, but Dismas the thief, the firstfruits of
Redemption.

I. The first effect of the Divine Mercy is Enlightenment. _Before they
call, I will answer_. Before the thief feels the first pang of sorrow
Grace is at work on him, and for the first time in his dreary life he
begins to understand. And an extraordinary illumination shines in his
soul. For no expert penitent after years of spirituality, no sorrowful
saint, could have prayed more perfectly than this outcast. His
intellect, perhaps, took in little or nothing of the great forces that
were active about him and within him; he knew, perhaps, explicitly
little or nothing of Who this was that hung beside him; yet his soul's
intuition pierces to the very heart of the mystery and expresses itself
in a prayer that combines at once a perfect love, an exquisite humility,
an entire confidence, a resolute hope, a clear-sighted faith, and an
unutterable patience; his soul blossoms all in a moment: _Lord, remember
me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom_. He saw the glory behind the shame,
the Eternal Throne behind the Cross, and the future behind the present;
and he asked only to be _remembered_ when the glory should transfigure
the shame and the Cross be transformed into the Throne; for he
understood what that remembrance would mean: "_Remember, Lord_, that I
suffered at Thy side."

II. So perfect, then, are the dispositions formed in him by grace that
at one bound _the last is first_. Not even Mary and John shall have the