The Bethesda retreat with Fr Józef Witko in Rzeszów. That is where we first told the story of Dzika Figa in public.

There are places you travel to in search of an answer.

And there are messengers of God whom you long to meet on your road!

The retreat “By the pool of Bethesda. Healing through the prayer of the Rosary”, led by Fr Józef Witko OFM at the TABOR Diocesan House in Rzeszów, was exactly such a place.

We came there above all as pilgrims of this land.

We left with an even deeper conviction that Dzika Figa is not our idea. It is an answer to God’s invitation.

It all began with a single Gospel reading.

A few months earlier, during the Eucharist, we heard the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14–30).

During the homily something happened that I cannot explain in any other way than as a gentle stirring of the Holy Spirit.

One sentence appeared in my heart:

„You do so many marketing projects for other people. And what are you doing for Me?”

That question gave me no peace.

When I got home I told my husband everything.

He looked at me very calmly and answered simply:

„Then do it.”

There was no business plan.

There was no strategy.

There was only the decision that if this really is led by the Holy Spirit and if it lasts, then it was His from the very beginning.

Praying for a name

Over the following days I prayed to the Holy Spirit to come up with a name for this work.

I asked for a name that would be brilliant.

I asked for a name that would be simple and easy to catch, by ear and by eye.

I asked for a name with many meanings.

„If I am to create this work, think up a name for it. One that does not exist yet.”

A few days later I was driving to work in the morning, with a conference by Fr Józef Witko playing in the background.

I was singing, worshipping the Holy Spirit, praying – until I reached a crossroads. Then I fell silent, and out of the speaker came the words of Fr Witko: a wild fig.

It was the conference:

„The keys to opening yourself to the Holy Spirit”

This was the exact passage:

„The keys to opening yourself to the Holy Spirit” – from the moment where Fr Józef Witko speaks about the wild fig:
YouTube – The keys to opening yourself to the Holy Spirit (the passage about the wild fig)

I remember that moment very clearly.

The car.

The road to work.

A prayer of worship.

The crossroads. Silence.

And suddenly…

„Dzika Figa.” – The Wild Fig.

I knew.

That was the name.

Not because it was attractive from a marketing point of view.

But because it came at the very moment I was asking for it.

Coming back to the retreat

That is why the Bethesda retreat was so special for us.

For the first time we were able to thank Fr Józef Witko in person.

Although he probably had no idea that the Holy Spirit had used his teaching in just this way.

During the testimonies we were able to tell the story of how Dzika Figa was born.

It was a deeply moving moment.

A small dream of ours came true.

We gave Father a Dzika Figa T-shirt as a sign of our gratitude.

Whichever way you look at it, from that moment on he will know how the seeds of his words – and of the words of the Holy Spirit – scattered into the air have taken root.

Did they fall on fertile ground? God alone knows. Every day I pray that His will may be done in our lives.

Bethesda – a place that teaches you to look deeper

The retreat, however, was not only about testimony.

Above all it was a great school of prayer and of understanding the Gospel.

The story of the pool of Bethesda from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of St John took on an entirely new meaning.

Fr Józef Witko showed how the five porticoes surrounding the pool can also be read as an invitation to enter into the mysteries of the Rosary.

But what stayed with us most powerfully was the dialogue between Jesus and the paralysed man.

Jesus asks:

„Do you want to be made well?” (Jn 5:6)

And the man…

does not answer:

„Yes.”

Instead he starts talking about his problem.

„Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up.”

How many times do we do exactly the same thing?

Instead of answering Jesus with a simple:

„Yes, I want to.”

we tell him all the reasons why it cannot be done.

Why others have it easier.

Why we will not manage.

Why it is already too late.

That was one of those teachings that stay with a person for a long time.

A Rosary that leads to healing

The whole retreat was immersed in the prayer of the Rosary.

Wholly immersed in the peace of the Holy Spirit and of Mary.

As a road leading to an encounter with Jesus.

To the healing of the heart.

To forgiveness.

To trust.

To handing over to him everything we have been carrying for years.

Thank you

We came back from Rzeszów filled with gratitude.

For the prayer we shared.

For the testimonies.

For the people who blessed us on our way and spurred us on to new undertakings.

For the teaching.

And for an even greater certainty that it is worth walking the road along which God is leading.

Because sometimes a single sentence heard during a conference can become the beginning of a work we would never have thought up on our own.

And for us, Dzika Figa is precisely such a work. Amen!