Three things have come together in my mind the last few days: a video, a quote and a reader’s request for information about the history of Lent.

The short YouTube video told what happened when wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995 after being gone almost 70 years.

The population of the deer in the park had grown huge in spite of human efforts to keep them down. The deer had grazed much of the vegetation in the park down to nearly nothing.

The little pack of wolves killed a few of them, but what counted was that they changed the behavior of the deer. The deer began to stay out of the valleys and gorges where the wolves could trap them. So the vegetation grew up again, and with the grasses and trees came lots and lots of birds.

Beavers also increased along with the trees, and their dams created habitats for all kinds of amphibians and other critters. Because the wolves also killed coyotes, the small mammals multiplied, so eagles and other raptors returned and repopulated. The bear population rose in part because berry bushes grew again.

The wolves even changed the park’s rivers. The greater vegetation prevented soil erosion, so the rivers meandered less, flowed faster and formed pools and rippling waters — all of which is good for wildlife. The video concluded by saying the little pack of wolves transformed the ecosystem and even the area’s physical geography.

In our out-of-whack natural world, God knows how to rebalance things so that His creation can produce abundant life.

The season of Lent can open us up to a different form of God’s same kind of work, all geared toward the “life in abundance” that He promises to those who follow Him.

Too many of us resemble Yellowstone Park before the wolves returned. We’ve mostly lost our Catholic-edge as we allow the practice of our faith to be eaten up by many distractions. We frequently meander around when it comes to learning our faith, and we’ve lost many blessings as a result.

In a Catholic News Service story about how the Catholic Church persevered in the Ukraine during harsh World War II persecutions, an Eastern Catholic priest gives us insight into why we each need a “wolf” or two at Lent.

“Even worse than facing outright persecution is the demoralizing force of consumerism and materialism that has crept into our hearts in North America and Western Europe,” says Father Andriy Chirovsky, pastor of St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church in Tucson, Ariz.

“I hate to say it,” he adds, “but it’s like people have it too good and have forgotten what life is about.”

Lent is a great time for God to rebalance us. But we have to take the initiative. In glancing over articles about the history of Lent, what struck me is how our Lenten practices are greatly whittled down from even a few decades ago.

And yet, we Catholics do try harder than most of the rest of society to embrace Lenten discipline and sacrifice. I hope we all have committed to some sort of denial and some sort of difficult, holy action this season. Any of us who chose some bare-minimum action might want to add on to it. It’s still early.

Like with the carnivorous wolves, it may seem counter-productive to introduce something harsh in order to bring us something good. But some 2,000 years of Church history shows that Lenten sacrifices are important.

Let’s trust God’s method, welcome a “Lenten wolf” into our life today, and see what happens.