Treasure hunters

Treasure. A simple, short word that captures the imagination. It makes people dream and think about how much their lives would change if a treasure, even a small one, were to be found. It has such an effect on people that a single report of the discovery of new clues to the whereabouts of some legendary treasure is enough for the subject to become a source of discussion, and the indicated location to become a destination for people who dream of adventure and finding hidden goods.

There are many such treasures known to man. Some have been found after research and investigation. Others will probably remain hidden forever, becoming yet another legend to stir the hearts of adventurers from time to time, who will set out from their homes at the next report of their probable hiding place, full of hope that this time they will be the victors and discover the secret.

The treasure hunt has become the plot of many a book and film. This is probably because, no matter how you look at it, deep down inside each of us is a treasure hunter. We are not necessarily looking for treasure in the sense of wealth and financial assets. (Although I think that everyone who buys a lottery ticket at a Totalizator Sportowy lottery outlet on the occasion of the next rollover is in some way a treasure hunter). But a treasure should not be seen only in this way.

Human treasures are different. They can be fame or fortune, but also family happiness, friendship or knowledge. Such a treasure can also be the search for God and abiding in a relationship with Him.

To people who have become such special seekers of God, I would like to dedicate a series of articles that will appear in our parish bulletin. In these successive texts we will explore with our protagonists the life that took place in the deserts of Egypt in the third and fourth centuries after Christ. We will visit with them Nitria, Sketis and Goals - the main places where their explorations took place. We will meet masters of asceticism, titans of work on their own weaknesses, but also those who came to them with hope and faith that they would be helped in their own quest.

Tradition has called these men the Desert Fathers. They were the first monks - hermits. With their lives in the harsh desert conditions, they paved the way for monks and nuns of later times, right up to those living today. Through their experiences, they laid the foundations for the consecrated life, but also guided lay people on the path of seeking a living encounter with God.

The first manual for this life, even before the first rules were written down, was Sacred Scripture. In its pages (although this term is hardly appropriate when speaking of people who often knew the Scriptures by heart, if not in their entirety, then at least in long passages) we find the lives and attitudes of the great friends of God whom the monks sought to emulate. Thus, looking at the life of Abraham, they fearlessly left everything, discovering in their hearts the voice of a vocation, following the example of Elijah, they went into the desert, and following the example of John the Baptist, they lived a life of mortification. Finally, like Christ, they fought in the desert against the temptations that beset them. And all this in order to find the treasure - a peaceful and loving union of their lives with God.

Let me conclude with at least a general outline of what I intend to include in this series, which I have taken the liberty of calling "Treasures of the Desert". The title itself has a double meaning for me. On the one hand, I relate it to the lifelong quest of the monks who sought God in their desert with a zeal that would be envied by fairy-tale pirates searching for a chest full of gold. There is, however, a second meaning to the title, which refers to the wisdom of these monks, which, discovered today, is also a treasure that the desert has borne for us. In our search for this wisdom, we will take a brief look at the time of the monks, paying particular attention to the issues that preoccupied the community of believers at that time. We will try to see who they were and what kind of lives they led. We will look at those who were most famous in their time, and finally we will try to examine their teachings to see how many of their words are still relevant today.