You're listening to Catholic Sprouts, the daily podcast for Catholic kids that strives to plant seeds of faith.

Hey there, sprouts. Today is Friday, March 13th, 2020. This week on the Catholic Sprouts podcast, we have been talking about the vice of envy and the remedy to this vice, which is

loving pity. We have seen this played out through the story of

the selfish giant. Yesterday, we looked at the first of the two thieves that were crucified with

Jesus, the bad thief, or the thief that chose envy and criticism. Today, we are going to look at the good thief or the

repentant thief, as he's sometimes called. Now, let's just review once again. Two men were crucified

with Jesus Christ. We don't know from the gospel exactly what they were guilty of. And remember, they were probably also Jews.

At the time, the Roman Empire controlled Jerusalem. Remember, Pontius Pilate was a Roman. And to keep the

order, they use brutal force, meaning they oftentimes crucified or did even worse things to people so that they could

control the Jewish people. So these two men were probably Jewish, but we can understand that they

likely did something terrible. Maybe they were thieves. Maybe they were working to do all sorts of

terrible things. Maybe they were murderers.

We have no idea.

But we can understand that they did something bad.

Jesus, on the other hand, of course, is completely innocent.

So they're crucified.

And we also know that when a person is crucified, they do not die right away. The Romans were experts at

being brutally torturous to people. When a person was crucified, it often took hours and hours

for them to die. In fact, we read later in the gospel that the Romans ordered that the legs be broken of those that

were crucified so that they would die faster. So the men are up there hanging on the crosses for

a long time. We also hear that some of the high priests come by and they mock Jesus. Just like

the unrepentant thief, the bad thief,

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