The Treasure Hunt

When I was a child, there was a moment at summer camp we looked forward to more than any other: the treasure hunt. We talked about it for days beforehand. We watched for the leaders' announcement, picked our teammates carefully, hoped we'd be on the strongest team — the one that would find the treasure.

For at the end of the game, there really was a treasure. Nothing much, of course — a handful of candies, perhaps a chocolate medal. But in our eyes, it was a real treasure. And what made it so was knowing we would share it. That was what made the whole thing so desirable: the shared joy we'd taste together, sitting in the grass, passing the spoils from hand to hand.

The game would begin. We'd be handed a riddle. Solve it, and you'd find the first clue. Then another riddle, then another. The path forked. Sometimes two trails opened before us, and we had to choose. And there, on certain trees, we'd see a cross drawn: not this way. A false trail. A path that looked promising but led nowhere.

So we'd stop. We'd hesitate. We'd send out scouts — the quickest, the cleverest — to peer a little further down. They'd come back out of breath: no, it's a dead end — or else: quick, come this way! And the whole team would burst forward, laughing, shouting, sure of the direction now.

I often think back to those summers. And I tell myself that life is strangely like that game.

There is a treasure at the end. There are riddles to solve. There are trails that fork, and some of them are marked with a cross that says not this way. How many paths have I taken in life believing they would lead me to happiness, only to find they were dead ends? How many times would I have done well to stop, to ask, to send out scouts before running ahead with my head down?

The prophet Jeremiah says nothing else. There is an art of Christian walking that begins with a pause. To look. To ask. To discern. Not to rush down the first trail that comes along just because it looks wide and easy.

But here is the wonder. In the treasure hunts of our childhood, the cross marked the mistake: don't go that way. In the Gospel, it is the opposite. The cross has become the sign of the right trail. Where men tried to write not this way, God has written it is here. Where we saw a dead end, a failure, a death, the path to the treasure has opened.

The world looks at the cross and thinks it sees a no-entry sign. The disciple draws nearer and discovers an arrow.

And the treasure, at the end? It too is there, faithful to the memory of childhood. It is not a treasure to keep for oneself. It is a joy we share, sitting in the grass with our companions on the road, passing from hand to hand the broken bread, the cup, the Word.

Walk well, brothers and sisters. And see you soon — under the tree, around the treasure.