Pastor's Reflection - July 13, 2025

Resolving Conflict the Way Christ Taught Us

During my training to become a resident advisor in college, I vividly remember an important presentation about helping people resolve their conflicts. After all, two strangers living in a 230 square-foot space are bound to have disagreements and problems. We were told that if someone came to us to complain about their roommate (unless there was an issue of personal safety) we were to ask whether they had first spoken with their roommate about the concern. If they hadn’t, we told them they needed to do that before we would get involved. 

As I grew in my knowledge of the Word of God, I realized this was a teaching Jesus shared with His followers, as seen in Matthew 18:15-17.

Yet, this teaching is seldom followed. More often, people bypass their own responsibility to follow it and come directly to me to complain about another member of the church or a staff member. 

I now have the responsibility of being the pastor of three parishes, along with the additional task of helping us all become one parish family. My plate is quite full with these responsibilities and others assigned by the Archbishop and the Archdiocese. I simply cannot serve as a mediator for everyone’s problems and will be making a much greater effort to enforce and promote this teaching for my well-being and for the health of our community. 

It is hard to confront people because we don’t know how they will respond. Sometimes they may brush us off, get defensive, or even turn our concern back on us. This is exactly why the Lord outlined three steps in this teaching. The first being to go to the person first.

Conflicts are a normal and healthy part of life and they provide the opportunity to allow us to invite the Holy Spirit, our interior Teacher, to help us. I shared with you in a homily several months ago about how I foolishly waited nearly three years to resolve a conflict with someone and robbed myself of a lot of peace. Forgiveness is a huge element in following this teaching. 

As we move forward as a parish family let’s hold each other accountable to this important teaching knowing that everything Jesus taught us is for our benefit and will lead to a peaceful heart.

In Christ, 

Fr. James Northrop, Pastor