Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother
has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. - Matthew

For help in reflecting on today’s challenging reading about reconciliation, I talked it over with my late mom during my morning walk. Please join us!

For years I called Mother whenever I needed to vent about a relative who made me crazy even though I knew what she would say.

“Try to look at it from their point of view,” Mother would say as she calmed me down.  “People are going to be what they will be. They’re not going to change.”

Mother, who valued peace above almost all else, knew she could bring me around even when it didn’t seem fair because the other person had usually started the battles. Mother wouldn’t let me off the hook because my responses had fed the conflicts.

And Jesus doesn’t either. He’s less concerned with sorting out degrees of culpability than leading us to reconcile with others, no matter how difficult.

“Be thankful for your more manageable personality,” Mother would tell me during my complaining calls.

Could this be the “gift” that Jesus wanted me to leave on the altar as I left to start the peace process? Do you have a similar “gift” that could help you reconcile with others?

Jesus commands us to accept responsibility for our contributions to conflicts before we  even try to make things right. We’ll have done what he asks regardless of how others respond.

So, dear readers, next time the person who annoys you most is making you nuts, try to channel what Jesus teaches us about resolving conflicts. And remember my mom’s practical approach to getting through such episodes even when you have to grit your teeth to do so.

P.S. It’s important to note that today’s gospel doesn’t require us to remain silent when moral issues are at stake. Jesus certainly didn’t.  Peacemakers are obligated to take moral stands even when doing so causes conflict. In fact, it’s especially powerful when people like my mom draw such lines.

I remember her hanging up on a relative who harangued her about our family’s first inter-racial marriage until that person accepted it – even became a strong supporter of the happy couple. I’m sure that Jesus cheered her on.