"These three agree" >>>
In the golden age of sailing vessels, a mariner fixed his position on the high seas by triangulating the noonday sun, mast and horizon. With the aid of a sextant and a reliable timepiece, he could accurately determine both latitude and longitude. Hence, the sailor knew the location of his vessel and the distance remaining to port. In his first epistle, the apostle John triangulates the believer, his neighbor and God to instruct the universal Church regarding the mystical Body of Christ:
EVERY ONE who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments." [1Jn 5:1-2]
Opting to forget or ignore your brother's sins over forgiving him is like throwing a lifeline to a drowning man with no intention of drawing him in. Silence in the face of sin is hardly the better part of wisdom; to the contrary, it is complicity in folly.
Absent reconciliation with God and neighbor, it is humanly impossible to forget or ignore the consequences of sin. All sins are injuries, very many of which are life-threatening for one's eternal soul; all sins require divine healing. The man who does not know God stumbles in the dark. [cf. 1Jn 2:11] Rudderless, he does not know where he is, nor can he see where he is going.
Filled with dread, he is helpless to resolve his anxiety. He does not know peace. Should he broach to, his most personal relationships will founder as well. Alternatively, perhaps he and those who depend on him will zigzag endlessly throughout life until exhaustion or famine overtakes them just outside safe harbor. Reconciliation is never exclusive. Love and forgiveness are never secret matters.
Love, if it is to bear fruit, must be deep-rooted and far-reaching. That the peace of Christ (1) may genuinely take root in your heart, pray that you "be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man." [Eph 3:16] Pray in the Spirit for the power "to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." [Eph 3:18-19]
You cannot love your brother if you rely on your inconstant human powers. You cannot love your brother alone and apart from the community in which you and he are situated. He who hates his brother also sins against the community in which he and his brother live. Forgiving one's brother in the supernatural power of God's Spirit, however, is to restore him to the essential community of faith.
Forgiveness, therefore ennobles the Christian community. Throughout human history man has constructed sailing vessels and charted his course for unseen shores. As well, Christians journey through time and space on the vessel named by Tradition as the Barque of Peter.
She is the Church, commissioned by Christ for one voyage and one destination. Hers will always be a maiden voyage. To the Church and her pilgrim travelers, the apostle John writes concerning the interrelation of believer, neighbor and God: "If any one says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." [1Jn 4:21]
To neglect love and reconciliation is to throw overboard the only instruments by which we may navigate to God whom we have not seen. Submit, therefore, as wise and seasoned mariners for whom the apostle's words are a reliable chart leading you out of dangerous waters:
HE WHO says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and in it there is no cause for stumbling. But he who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. [1Jn 2:9-11]
Heaven is safe harbor. We know about heaven from the one who came down from heaven [cf. Jn 6:38,50-51], the Son of God who died on the cross: "There are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree". [1Jn 5:8] As you chart your course for eternal life, know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son, the "bright morning star". [Rev 22:16]
Fix your position in the Kingdom of God by loving Him and keeping his commandments. Set, as your destination, the horizon of heaven and its "holy city, new Jerusalem". [Rev 21:2] Purify your hearts and forgive your brother in God's Spirit. You need one another. To reach journey's end, obey Christ your captain and serve faithfully his vessel, the Church.
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(1) "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." [Jn 14:27]
