The Worst Sinner You Know

English Homily- Seventh Sunday of Summer- Fr. Peter Patros To judge someone as the worst sinner, you would need to know their intentions, their circumstances, and their culpability — three things we rarely have access to even about ourselves. The Pharisee in the temple was generous, disciplined, and devout, but he made his goodness relative by standing next to someone else and measuring down. The tax collector could not even lift his eyes, but prayed not as one sinner among many — in the Greek, he said the sinner, as if he were the only one in the world. That is the only honest answer any of us can give. We are the one soul whose intentions we know, whose excuses we remember, whose graces we know we wasted. St. Paul called himself the foremost of sinners — not out of false humility, but because he stopped comparing. The question is not who is the worst sinner in the world. It is who is the one sinner you are actually responsible for.