Joy is the most distinctive mark of a living faith. It is not something superficial, but profound. It does not mean going around with a delirious grin on one's face all the time, or slapping people on the back – or even smiling, though that is something good and recommended by Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

Joy is a divine source of confidence welling up within one's heart, a deep-seated happiness that no suffering, bereavement or tragedy or loss can completely destroy, though it may seem to come close to obliterating it at times. It is a joy, like that of the apostles, which paradoxically comes after severe disillusionment.

The false hopes which the apostles had for Jesus during his lifetime, had to be destroyed by the experience of His passion and death before they could experience the joy of the Risen Lord. Perhaps we might get a better understanding of this indestructible joy if we take a look at its opposite: boredom.

Boredom used to be the preserve of the idle rich, who had no worries about trying to make ends meet, and so had to devise ever new distractions to keep their boredom at bay: games, hunting, parties, and love affairs. In other words, their energy was given over to various forms of escapism. Now we seem to live in the age of boredom; even youngsters complain continually about being bored.

The increase in alcoholism and use of drugs among the young is probably not unrelated to the search for an escape from boredom, as is the continual search for more and more parties, for new experiences, even the most bizarre. To what extent is the sudden proliferation of extra-marital affairs due to boredom?

However, one may answer that there is no doubt but that the indifference of many today in the face of this widespread phenomenon is a form of boredom. Strange to say, but boredom is the true driving force of the workaholic, obsessive work being the most common form of boredom.

Boredom is a deep-seated dissatisfaction with oneself and one's present situation, which gives rise to a constant need to escape. It is a sickness of the soul. It is not a new phenomenon. In the 19th century, H.D. Thoreau (1817-1862) commented that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is new, possibly, is its new intensity manifested in the widespread escapism unknown to former generations and made possible by our new-found prosperity.

What is the source of this desperation, this deep-seated dissatisfaction? It is the fact that we are not being true to ourselves, namely to our true dignity. We all yearn for happiness, for joy, because that is what God intended for us. We have an insatiable thirst for a happiness that nothing, literally nothing on earth can satisfy. Only God. The more we confuse happiness with pleasure, the less satisfaction can we experience. Pleasures are transitory, joy is everlasting.

So boredom might not be such a bad thing after all. It is a kind of spiritual ache or pain that, like our physical aches and pains, alerts us to the fact that we are not well. Something is wrong with us, spiritually. What is bad is our manifold attempts to escape from it, instead of facing up to it for what it is: a spiritual hunger that only turning to God can satisfy.

The experience of boredom could become the first step to experiencing that joy that alone can banish boredom for ever. God says to us: “Be still and know that I am God.” All escapism takes the form of some kind of activism.

Remaining still and waiting for God in silent prayer, as the disciples waited in the upper room after the death and burial of Jesus, is the cure for all boredom. In silent prayer, hidden from the world, we encounter the Risen Lord, if we persevere. Then we shall know that spiritual joy which nothing can destroy and which transforms the simple pleasures of life in experiences of joy and contentment.



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