We begin Lent with two very familiar stories: Noah and the Ark, and Jesus in the wilderness. As a Catholic who was baptised in infancy, these were the stories  that I had heard from my earliest years and these same stories raised many questions in my mind. How could two of every animal fit on the Ark? Wouldn’t the lions eat the deer? Where did they get water to drink (flood water isn’t really drinkable – just look at the floods around the world)? Can a human being survive without eating for forty days? Why does everything happen in time periods of forty days?

So many questions that can be asked but only one or two reveals the message.

It was only after I emerged into adulthood that I could see the different layers embedded within the use of symbolic language. Like water being a sign of both life and death; drowning of the wickedness on earth as a prefigurement of baptism which removes sin; with forty days being a symbol for a period of preparation.

I then began to ask myself the questions that related more to Lent. What kind of relationship do I have with the Trinity and what is preventing me from growing closer to the Trinity? What is Jesus calling me to do to free myself from those sinful patterns of behaviour? Do I have confidence in God’s grace and covenant that he would not destroy me along with the sin?

Even though I had the questions, answering them wasn’t easy. The process was in fact quite uncomfortable – there were so many other more interesting, more pleasurable, and more pressing things to do. Thankfully, Jesus’s example of getting out into the wilderness to prepare for his mission gave me an idea of what I could do.

Am I willing to sit in the discomfort of the wilderness to be alone with Him and wrestle through these questions? What am I going to say “no” to, so that I can be free to say “yes” to God’s invitation?

Let us pray for the grace to be able to set aside time to look at what is holding us back from a closer walk with God this Lent.

Written by Vincent Ong