If your sister or brother should commit some wrong against you, go and point out the error, but keep it between the two of you. If she or he listens to you, you have won a loved one back; if not, try again, but take one or two others with you, so that every case may stand on the word of two or three witnesses. (Matthew 18: 15 – 16)

Jesus offers a deceptively simple challenge: if something is wrong, go and talk to the person involved. Not around them. Not about them. Not through a carefully constructed email. Go to them.

For educators, this is deeply relevant. Schools are communities of relationships, and wherever people work closely together, tension, misunderstanding and conflict will happen. The question is not whether conflict exists. The question is how we choose to respond to it. It is easy to talk about someone rather than to someone.

It is easy to let frustration become a staffroom conversation, a message to someone else, or quiet resentment that slowly damages trust. Jesus calls us to something harder and more courageous: direct conversation, honest listening and the possibility of repair.

That does not mean every conversation will be comfortable or every relationship will be restored immediately. It means we refuse to let avoidance become our culture. We choose truth over gossip, courage over convenience and restoration over winning.

Catholic education cannot simply teach reconciliation. It has to model it. The way we handle disagreement, disappointment and difficult conversations teaches our students something powerful about the kind of community we believe is possible.

So perhaps the challenge today is simple. Is there a conversation you are avoiding? Is there something that needs to be said, heard or repaired?

Maybe it is time to stop talking around it and start talking about it, with the person who needs to hear it.