This is the beginning of the prayer before Communion:
I believe, O Lord, and I confess, that thou art truly the
Christ, the Son of the living God, who didst come into the world to save
sinners, of whom I am first.
I’ve always felt a little uneasy about that. I have a tendency to be overly
contrite anyway, which is the reason that for several years I didn’t go to
explicitly penitential servies at all: if I did go to one, it left me in a blue
funk for days. I can handle that now, but the words still sting, every Liturgy,
when I say that prayer.
But today I realised, not for the first time but I haven’t been able to put
it into words before, that “sinners, of whom I am first” is to be taken
literally. Not “first” as in “first among the Apostles” like Saints Peter
and Paul, or “first among bishops” like the Archbishop of Constantinople, but
the first sinner I encounter when I look around me.
And then, of course, I don’t have to look any further. Other people’s sins
aren’t my responsibility. Of course, when an action of mine
makes someone sin, that is my responsibility, but only my own
action, not theirs.
I can imagine —I know, in fact— that there are sins much worse than mine;
for instance, I’ve never murdered anyone. But that’s none of my business. My
piffling sins may not be significant in the large picture but they do
stand between me and God, which is what matters and what needs to be cleared
up.
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