Celebrating water may sound like something more suited to the Easter Season or a child's Baptism. Yet August is Water Quality Month for a reason. As our Indigenous sisters and brothers frequently remind us, water is life.

Manna from heaven is what we’re all waiting for. But we keep looking up to the sky to find it, instead of in the body of Christ, namely our sisters and brothers.

The brain is a disorderly vehicle for thinking: untidy and easily distracted. It also has the unnerving tendency to act like a sieve whenever we’re trying to remember something important, meanwhile fastening stubbornly on the disturbing incident we’d most like to forget.

My daughter Hannah is committed to her eating routines. She has three squares a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And there is no skipping a meal.

Mark Twain wrote, “I have known many troubles in my life, most of which never happened.” I know about such troubles, too.

As we prepare to celebrate the sacred mysteries with trust in God’s saving grace, we ask for mercy.

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one.

Browse our library for additional Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B material.