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.

We touch upon several great moments of truth in the readings today. Joshua commands the Israelites: “Decide today whom you will serve,” and they chose the Lord.

Most of us start making conscious decisions around the age of 2, the year we learn to say “no.” If we can say no, one presumes we’re giving tacit assent to those events we don’t resist. In this way many of us form a lifelong pattern of compliance until we can’t bear the momentum around us, at which time we put our foot down.

I couldn’t believe my ears: a coworker was heckling a Catholic sister as she spoke at an event at the Catholic institution where I work. She is a Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a chaplain at my workplace.

On our 10th wedding anniversary, some friends gave my wife and me a welcome mat that had the words from today’s first reading on it: "As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."

That we may grow in holiness and prepare ourselves for the sacred mysteries of our faith, we acknowledge our faults and ask for mercy.

I am not afraid. I was born for this.

Browse our library for additional Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B material.

Click here to view the Take Five weekly for August 25, 2024.