Doctrine of St Francis #1, I am the Greatest Sinner
He knew he was the greatest sinner in the world!
In one of the legends about him, there is a famous dialogue between St Francis and one of his disciples or franciscan brothers, who asks him who is the greatest sinner in the world. St Francis said boldly “I am the greatest sinner in the world.“ The disciple murmured against him, “you cannot be serious, you work miracles, there are so many signs of God´s good blessing over your life and vocation. You must be saying this out of some affect, to appear holy or that is what you think you should say.” To this St Francis replied, “If the worst criminal in prison had been given the graces I had been given, I must think he would have made more out of them, or wasted less than I, and be more righteous than I. Thus I truly believe I am the greatest sinner.”
This is such a wonderful thought and a guard against a host of evils. Its a truly marvelous, razor sharp litmus test people can use to see if they are walking in God´s Spirit. To think there were excellent theologians who wrote volumes and volumes about God and spirituality and virtue but never could summarize the basic spirituality of the Christian life so succinctly and powerfully in one sentence: “I am the greatest sinner in the world.”
At the outset, one must say, St Francis lived this. He wept so much over his sins he went blind because of it. He did penances like none other because of this conviction. In contrast someone like Martin Luther, who affirmed a doctrine of total depravity about not just himself but all mankind. Luther expressed a similar sentiment but one that only seemed to rest at a theoretical level. If Martin Luther thought he was a great sinner, and he did say this, he didn´t act like he believed this. He didn´t stop being a drunk, or having a filthy mouth, he didn´t do penance. St Francis said, “academics blather, lovers act.“ And so it doesn´t take much to say I am the greatest sinner as a theory, but St Francis truly acted according to this belief. In one terce response, St Francis reveals the fundamental interior disposition of the just. What is this disposition? How could he say this with earnestness? Here are a few principles that help elucidate the reasoning behind his sincere conviction.
(1) Your objective righteousness in comparison to others should play no role in your subjective assessment of yourself.
Objective in the sense of being observable, Subjective in the sense of being non observable inner thoughts or feelings. Objective is what other people can sense, hear or see. Subjective is what is going on within you that they cannot sense hear or see. Subjective means according to ones interior inner conversation with oneself, ones interior intentions, feelings, and desires. So objectively, to lie is not as bad as to murder. So a liar might try to excuse himself, in his interior thinking about himself and say, “hey I am not so bad at least I have not murdered anyone.“ This would be to try to derive his value or worth or moral standing based on objective comparison. This is always false. God sees things differently. And God´s point of view is all that matters ultimately. Perhaps the murderer had horrible parents, never learned to control his anger as a result, and got unlucky that he killed someone in a bar fight. Maybe God´s plan for him was to convert his soul in prison so he could be a light in prison. We don´t know, so we cannot know that God sees us as inferior or superior. In contrast, it could be that the liar had wonderful parents, great catechesis, and his lying is much more offensive because God had planned for him to convert many souls. Thus the eternal consequence of his lies are worse than the murderer. We simply cannot derive our superiority over others due to objective comparison. Comparison with others should only work toward our humility and low estimation of ourself, because:
(2) Participation in the Good increases freedom and responsibility. And thus the gravity of fault as well.
Let´s consider three perspecctives on St Francis´s life that make his sins far worse than anyone else. Firstly, he knew Jesus Christ deeply, as Christ had visited him many times and given him so many signal graces and an intimate knowledge of Himself. A consequence of this intimacy is that he can hurt Christ way more with his sin. For example, a wife can hurt her husband through a small betrayal, say lusting after another man, almost infinitely more than one of his work colleaguges could through gross disloyalty, stealing millions of dollars. Thus, St Francis knew his small betrayals and sins would hurt Jesus more than anyone else. Secondly, because he had such an enormous vocation and influence, he knew his small sins would harm souls more than the great sins of normal people. Millions maybe billions of souls were on the line. So his small sins were much more consequential. Thirdly, St Francis was almost totally animated by God´s Spirit, and God is omnipotent, his spirit brings great wisdom and fortitude, so He had an incredible amount of freedom. And with great freedom, comes great responsibility. And the greater the responsibilty, so much more graver the sin. Yes, there is only one St Francis, but maybe there has only been one because he realized this simple truth. All of us are called to be Saints, thus all of us are called to understand ourselves as great sinners. The greater the sinner, the greater the Saint. Saints leverage their relations to acquantences and friends, who often pain them with thier sin or unbelief, to further lower themselves. And objective difference between them and their neighbor, whether their neighbor is far superior or inferior objectively, works to their humbling themselves.
(3) Charity assumes what is best about our neighbor, given how little we know about him.
So if you know what someone is doing is wrong, and they don´t know this, how do you know you weren´t responsible for stopping them? Simply by knowing more, you are more free to pursue what is good. Thus, while they are responsible for their action, you might be more free to help them than they are themselves. Maybe by speaking up, or setting a better example, or praying for them more you would have helped pull them out of ignorance or sin. The upshot of this reality is that any impulse to criticize others is just as much or even more a reason to criticize oneself.
St Francis knows how much grace he has wasted more than anyone else. This is the reason he gives for why he truly believes he is the greatest sinner. He leverages the epistemological priviledge we have regarding our subjectivity, regarding our own case, our inner thoughts and intentions, to lower himself. We have access to a lot more information regarding ourselves through our subjective experience, though many choose to disregard it. The prideful use this excess of knowledge concerning one´s own case to excuse themselves, they know all the things that led up to their sin, all their misfortunes, traumas, feelings, etc. The humble use this priviledged knowledge we have of ourselves to accuse themselves. They know how much they have wasted, they know their evil intentions that no one else sees, etc.
In contrast, concerning our neighbor, we simply cannot know what is going on to the same degree. We do not have access to the mind-space of our neighbor, we don´t know what they´ve been through, or going through, maybe the grave consequences of trauma or abuse or bad parenting or relationships. We cannot see their intentions in many cases. And bad people do many good actions with bad intentions. Like giving to the poor in front of others to appear generous. Good people often do bad things with good intentions. Like offering unsolicited advice. Because intention is so important to judging character, and its something that is often hard to see, charity assumes the best in others. In contrast, with the case concerning ourselves, where we know so much, here our ignorance of our neighbor is to the charitable an opportunity to assume the best, in the prideful or envious person, this ignorance lets them assume the worse to inflate themselves.
Assuming the best about someone is benevolence, to wish them well. It is of course motivating when people think well and expect high things of you. Love does this. Love makes things grow this way. In contrast, its demoralizing when others judge you negatively or expect the worst from you without grounds for doing so. This false recognition actually makes people worse. Charity is going to tend to see the good in our neighbor and hope that this good might grow if he is loved or lives according to God´s Spirit. And conversely Charity see the subjective evil in ourselves out of love for God and our neighbor. It knows how we have often rebelled against God, his graces, laws and plan for us.
This is the fundamental psychology behind St Francis´s statement. Saints love themselves objectively, i.e. as a creature. They care for their soul, mind, will, heart, virtue, and should care for their body to the extent it supports these things. Without this good self-love, they could not love others as themselves. But in contrast, Saints hate themselves subjectively, seeing their own self-will and self-love, thier capacity for disobedience or rejection of God´s will, as the source of all evil in them. And they know their own self will better than anyone else, so that is their focus.
(4) Those animated by God´s spirit will be more preoccupied with thier own failure to perform thier duties to perfection and ascend in virtue, than criticizing others.
In fact, our preocupation with our own defects should leave us little time or opportunity to even think about criticizing others. Instead, those animated by God´s spirit will tend in humility to notice the ways in which others objectively exceed our righteousness rather than how they fall short. The wonderful combination of 2 and 3 is that anytime we see our neighbor sin, it could be our fault. Had we become the person God called us to be, maybe millions would have already converted, including this person. We should examine ourselves and see if we aren´t responsible. It is edifying to find the exact same flaw in ourselves even if it be less noticable to others, as we tend to notice the things we justly dislike about ourselves in others. If we see pride in our friend. Rather than terminate the thought with criticism of them and their problem, think: “maybe if I had truly lived out humility and set a better example they would have been attracted to humility. Where can I find a similar pride in myself and eradicate it, hoping I might be a better influence on them.” So we should err on the side of criticizing ourselves and seeing the good in our neighbor. We should give all of our attention to doing the work God set before us, and not get distracted by how other people are falling short.
(5) Our subjective conviction of our own sin or sinfullness binds us to Christ and His Work on the Cross.
In this sense, St Francis´ claim is also his boast. The greatest sinner, he does not claim it without true contrition in his heart, but to claim this is also to claim he is the most loved by God. This was also true! As we hear in the parable of the lost sheep. The shepherd loves the lost sheep more than all the rest! The greatest sinner, has also recieved the greatest gift, the greatest redemption from Christ and has more reason to love Him the most. Christ wants to save everyone, and loves a challenge, so He is thankful for the hard cases where he truly shows his strength, patience, and love.
But truly, by thinking ourselves better than we are, we cut ourselves off from Christ´s redemptive work. This should strike fear into us. For then we consider His sufferings for, at least some of, our sins as unnecessary. Christ hangs on the cross suffering for our little white lies and we say, “really, was it that bad? are you serious? you have to suffer so much for this trifle? please no!” This is not the position we want to find ourselves in when we die and meet Christ Our Judge, wishing against His Sacrifice for us. He will abide by our wishes. He gives us free will. In contrast, the Saint errs on the side of making his sin greater and more consequential than it is, not only that he may not be confounded at his judgment, but also because this is how one comes to love with Jesus Christ and the gift of salvation he offers. Through confession and contrition, we are covered in Christ´s Precious Blood, we are healed and made righteous. But only if we want it and to the extent we want it.
Thus, increasing in righteousness, or becoming a better person, necessarily translates into an increasing awareness of the gravity of our sin. And an increasing awareness of the gravity of sin is what binds us to Christ and His precious Body and Blood more completely. If we think we are good based on comparison with others, what need do we have for Jesus to atone for our sin? It was not without reason that Christ went to the outcasts, the tax collectors, and public sinners. For those who took themselves for righteous, it was a non-starter. They didn´t need Him and what He wanted to offer, His Healing, His Sacrifice. As heartbreaking as our sin is for Christ, more heartbreaking is when we hide it from him, when we minimize it, when we refuse to let him cover our sin with His Blood through confession. Thus, there is also a magnanimity to what St Francis claims here, for at the same time he is saying, “I am the greatest sinner,” to the extent he has repented of his sin and done sufficient penance, this translates into, “I am the most loved by God, I have recieved his greatest gift, through my great sin, I am the most united with Christ.”
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Raised a Franciscan Irish Catholic (my Dad's two brothers were Franciscan priests and Mom and Dad were Third Order Franciscans) this article not only resounded in my soul, it opened up yet another avenue for me to consider who I am with honesty, to allow His Spirit to be not only in me, but to recognize when He speaks to me and to always follow His command. The greatest of these is of course to love Him with everything we are and to love all others regardless of their religion, politics, race - anyone we think might be different. This He commanded. My Mom often said, "You may not like 'em, but you always have to love them."
Good stuff. Thank you for following my blog. Would you mind telling me how you stumbled upon my blog and why you decided to follow it. I'm subscribing to "Sancti Stulti," linking this post into the one that I'm writing now because it says something I've thought for a long time but until now didn't know that St. Francis thought it before me. God bless you, Brother.