It is so easy to be negative, isn't it? We all know the challenges the Church faces, and they can seem so overwhelming. Facing what we're facing-- social opposition, financial difficulties, structural problems, declining participation-- we can find ourselves throwing up our hands and saying that there really is no way we can hope to do the work Jesus has asked us to do. It is impossible, we can say, to feed the hungry, care for the stranger, house the homeless, visit those in prison, nurse the sick and do the other things which Jesus commanded. Why work for justice, we find ourselves saying, when nothing will change? There are days we want to just throw in the towel. That's the attitude of Jesus' disciples in today's Gospel (Mt 15: 29-37) when Jesus points out that the great crowd which has been following Him for three days needs to be fed. Impossible, the disciples say. We're in the middle of nowhere and there is no food to be found. Hopeless. Can't be done. The people will just have to fend for themselves. How little things change over 2,000 years. Even when Jesus is with them, the disciples default to the negative, and conclude that the situation with which they are faced is beyond them. And yet, they are wrong. In some way which is beyond our understanding the disciples are given seven loaves of bread and a few fish to pass out, and it becomes enough to feed a huge crowd and leave seven baskets of left-overs. We're wrong too, I think, when we want to throw up our hands and say our problems are so big that we can't overcome them, can't do the work Jesus has given us to do. Sure, there are big problems-- always have been and always will be. We're flawed humans. Look back at Church history if you want that verified. Sexual abuse of minors-- the Didache, one of our earliest documents (from the 100's) specifically calls that out as a problem. But if we trust in the Lord and set our hands to work, we'll be amazed at what we can accomplish. Jesus wants us to be successful in caring for His creation. He wants His Church to grow. But He has to use us, and we have to get over our instinct to be negative and get out and do what we can. Who knows where the food will come from, or how we will have the energy for the work to be done. But it will be there, just as it was there for the disciples. We just have to believe.