Photo: Kenny Joseph

Some of you may remember a photo last year of a pretty butterfly poised over a zinnia.

This year the same flower has another visitor the beast - a locust!

No matter how beautiful our garden, it seems that when the hardworking bachacs give us a rest, up come the voracious creepy caterpillars followed by swarms of locusts.

Within the delightful garden of our souls, we meet the beast ready to pounce on us. We don't need to see locusts and a tail to discover the beast within tempting us to instant gratification, success, glory and power. They would not be temptation if they were not attractive even as this locust with its penetrating eye.

This Lent the pest controls are our prayer, almsgiving and fasting all done in secret so that the beast gets caught unawares.

The garden is saved (for a while) when we meet and beat the beast!