“Brother George says it is a mortal sin to work in our vegetable garden on Sundays.“

Power to liberate

CHRIST’S IDEA OF AUTHORITY, synodal reflection no 8.

by John Wijngaards

“Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Where are they, woman? Is there no one left to condemn you? “No one, sir”, she answered. “Well, then,” Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. You may leave, but do not sin again”. (John 8,10-11)

“In saying this Jesus declared all foods clean”. (Mark 7,19)

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There was a time – and not so long ago – that Catholic life was dominated by fear of incurring a ‘mortal sin’.  Mortal sin, we were taught, would be punished by being condemned to burn in hell forever, unless you obtained forgiveness before you died. Let me share a horrifying experience of it in my own life when I was ten years old.

It was December 1945. With my mother and three brothers I had been detained for four and a half years in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. Non-stop hunger with one small meal a day. Ever recurring diseases without proper medication. Constant fear of our guards’ brutality.

On the 15th of August 1945 Japan had surrendered. We were at the time in Camp Ambarawa 6 in central Java, then part of the Dutch East Indies. Instead of improving, our situation worsened because Javanese rebel groups encircled the camp from all sides. A platoon of Gurkha soldiers from the British army was parachuted in. They protected our camp. But they could not prevent the camp being shelled from surrounding hills causing daily casualties. Food was scarce, depending on supplies being dropped from the skies by RAF planes. Our drink water was cut off from time to time causing agony in the tropical heat.

Our predicament lasted for three and a half months. Finally on the 5th of December a British military convoy fought their way from the coast to our camp. We were loaded on trucks and transported to the relative safety of liberated Halmahera camp in harbour town Semarang.

What about ‘mortal sin’, you may wonder? Well, listen. A few days after arrival in Halmahera we heard that next morning a Catholic priest would celebrate Mass in a nearly barrack. It was an event we had missed for a long time. We attended eagerly. When the moment of communion came round, I suddenly remembered that I had drunk some water in the middle of the night – I did not know the exact time. I recalled with anguish that during the instruction classes I had received before receiving my first holy communion, we had been told that after midnight eating or drinking before holy communion was forbidden under ‘mortal sin’.

I did not know what to do. In the end, with fear and trembling, I joined my mother and received communion … And then a real agony of conscience gripped me. What if I had committed a mortal sin?! What should I do about it? I realised priests were scarce at that time. So while the crowd was leaving the barrack after mass, I slipped away from my mother and timidly approached the make-shift altar where the priest was packing up the sacred utensils. He was an elderly Dutch missionary.

“Father”, I whispered, looking up at him. “I may have committed a mortal sin. Can I go to confession?”

“Fine”, he said. He put on his stole and grabbed a stool to sit on. I knelt at his feet.

“What’s the matter?”, he said. I told him what had happened.

He looked at me. “Well, I am glad you take it seriously. But don’t worry. I will give you absolution. So even if you did drink after midnight, all guilt is wiped away now!”

Freedom from law

Christ liberated us from sin. He gave his life to redeem us. He poured out his blood “for many for the forgiveness of sins”. When Jesus was asked to explain what he meant by saying, “You will be made free”, he answered : “I tell you the truth : everyone who sins is a slave of sin”. The freedom which Jesus brought is first and foremost a freedom from sin.

To liberate us from slavery to sin, Jesus demolished the prison walls of external law. Time and again he disregarded and transgressed the laws that the Jews were being told to follow. In this respect Jesus was a real rebel and a liberator. He clashed frequently with the Jewish authorities by doing or by making others do, what had been forbidden on the Sabbath. The woman caught in adultery had to be stoned to death according to the law. Jesus simply sends her away without punishment. When arguing with the scribes about the traditions of the elders (concerning the washing of hands before taking a meal), Jesus not only rejected those traditions, but revoked the Old Testament law according to which some foods were clean and others unclean. “Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean”, Jesus proclaimed. His listeners understood that he declared all foods clean.

It would be wrong to imagine that Jesus did no more than rearrange the laws, abolishing some and promulgating others. He did not substitute a new code of laws for the old one. Wherever Jesus spoke about law, he replaced external performance by interior sanctity. The one obligation for Christians is love and all the implications that follow from it.

Jesus’ disciples understood Jesus’ revolutionary new morality.

• “For freedom Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to law …  If you are led by the Spirit you are not under any law.” (Galatians 5,1.18)
• “In Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8,2)
• “As long as we love another God will live in us and God’s love will be complete in us … In love there can be no fear. Fear is driven out by perfect love. Because to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love”. (1 John 4,12.18)

Authority that promotes the freedom of love

Authority in the Catholic Church has relied on exercising control by imposing laws. Obligations imposed under mortal sin included attending Sunday mass, annual confession, not eating meat on Fridays, avoiding masturbation and divorce. Much of this has been relaxed after Vatican II, but the attitude still prevails. Recent Popes added other prohibitions such as the use of artificial means of contraception and homosexual acts.

Questions

Do Church leaders honour what was priority for Jesus?

Do they focus on educating people to a spiritual transformation within their minds and hearts?

Do they encourage them to live by unconditional love, to listen to the Spirit, to be faithful to their conscience?

Text: John Wijngaards; illustration: Tom Adcock.