The 23rd Saturday in Ordinary Time
Was Paul really the worst sinner of all time, as he implies in the reading from first Timothy? Obviously, many people have lived longer in a more depraved condition than Paul did. He became a Christian relatively early in his adult life. Maybe the apostle meant that he was the “foremost” sinner in the sense that his sin of aggressively tearing down the work that God was building up was the worst kind of sin. It was much worse than simply ignoring God and going your own way.
It’s striking that Paul seems to have regarded himself as still a sinner, although a forgiven one: “I am the foremost.” The fact is that it’s always the characteristic of a true saint to consider himself a real sinner. The air in a room may seem to be clear, but when the sunlight comes in, you can see that it’s full of dust and other impurities. It’s the same way when people draw nearer to God. Then God’s light comes into their hearts, and they see their own infirmities more clearly and begin to feel how offensive sin is in the light of God’s goodness.
And then “out of the store of goodness in his heart, the good person produces good.”
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