EVERY religion, every spiritual path, every attempt to live a healthy life, requires a coming to terms with darkness, with doubt and death. We might call it Lent. We might call it Ramadan. We might call it a wellness retreat. But whatever we call it, we all need that wilderness experience, that stripping away of all those unnecessary luxuries of life and getting back to basics.

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I shall return.”

We need to shed the clothing of pride and ambition, of greed and acquisitiveness, and to rediscover who we really are. We need to embrace our vulnerability and our nakedness. Stripped of the distractions of everyday busyness, who am I, what am I, what does it mean to be human, what is the purpose of my life? And what are my deepest desires? Can I cope with being hungry? What am I most frightened of?

“Remember you are dust and that to dust you shall return.”

No spiritual path, wellness retreat or mindfulness exercise is of any earthly use unless it helps us deal with the simple fact that one day, sooner or later, we are going to die.

The Christian season of Lent commemorates a young man leaving behind the comfort and certainties of family and community and entering, instead, all on his own, the emptiness and the scariness of the Judean desert. He needed to confront his demons. He needed to work out just what it was that God wanted him to do with his life. He needed space in which to discover his own inner energy and power.

So don’t just give something up, enter the wilderness, do the heavy lifting, battle with those demons, embrace the mystery and prepare to pass over with Jesus from death to life.

Fr Michael Brandon

Parish priest

St Augustine of Hippo Catholic Church