Matthew 15:32-39. Today it is Matthew's telling of the miracle of the loaves and fishes! Just last week I got John's! Obviously, I'm supposed to be learning something here.... Again, the disciples ask "Where are we to get bread enough in the desert to feed so great a crowd?" When Jesus asks them what they do have - they answer seven loaves and a few small fish. This is enough. Jesus does not even give them any further direction, he just has the crowd sit down and then distributes the food to them. There is plenty, there is even much left over.

I think maybe I have gotten this story twice recently because I am going through a bit of a dark period right now. I am often bordering on despair about the state of everything and I sometimes have a hard time feeling hopeful. God does not want me to feel this way. Despair is not in God's vocabulary - that is an emotion of the evil one. This story shows that we always have enough. The things I have, the small joys of everyday (and they are there!) are more than enough for what God is asking of me.

This really is a question of perspective - I have to change the way I am looking at things and try to see things from God's point of view. He created and loves all the people who I see as the problem-causers. He wants to feed them, he has compassion on them. He wants to feed me, too, and he does every day in the Eucharist, and in my prayer life.

So, having these loaves and fishes which he has generously bestowed on me, I must let him use me to distribute them to the crowd. That is where the hope is, in the knowledge that and he will do it. He knows that there is enough to go around, he just needs people to help him distribute it. He is asking me not to sit around worrying and feeling miserable and sorry for myself, but to get up, go out, and distribute his love - his loaves and fishes - to all.