The premise of Lent is that it is like Christ’s sojourn alone when he “was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.” Angels and wild beasts … what wonders that conjures up. But no food. His cousin, John the Baptist, dressed in camel skin, only emerged from the wilderness to begin a career of preaching and baptising: he too encountered those wild beasts. John subsisted on locusts and wild honey, a sticky and inadequate diet. Christ’s 40 days, of course, echo the 40 years that the people of Israel spent in the desert, with a diet enlivened by quails and manna.