“We are overwhelmed by words, by superficial pleasures, and by an increasing din, filled not by joy but rather by the discontent of those whose lives have lost meaning” (Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate, #29).

I don’t believe that my life has lost its meaning, but there are certainly days when I feel overwhelmed. Network and cable news fill me with a profound discontent—sometimes with disgust. Unremitting, ubiquitous rage is the sum and substance of the 24 hour news cycle. Superficial pleasures are celebrated, and sold, by the news and entertainment media. Real joy is nowhere to be found. 

Sound bleak? Yes indeed. What’s the answer?

Some urge us to flee “the world” and to seek refuge in monastic enclaves designed to keep the world out. This is not the way of Pope Francis who, as a good Jesuit, counsels a much more active solution—one of engagement and accompaniment, “being in the world but not of it.”

I discuss this question at some length in my book, The Benedictine Way, which reflects on my 50 years’ experience with Benedictine monks and their distinctive form of spirituality. 

Much of what Pope Francis says in his new apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad), on the call to holiness, is a discussion of how Christians should live in a world gone to ruins. The answers are simple but not easy. They can be found if we search for them and if we imitate the words and actions of Jesus, Mary and all the holy women and men we call saints. As we read in John 3:16-17:

God so loved the world that he gave his only-­begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.