Recent research indicates a link between boredom and early death.

Based on questionnaires completed by 7,500 London civil servants aged 35 to 55 in the 1980s: those who reported being bored at work have subsequently died of heart attacks at over double the rate of those saying they liked their jobs. (International Journal of Epidemiology)

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A quote from Pope Benedict XVI: “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism . . . which has as its highest goals one’s own ego and one’s own desires . . . the church needs to withstand the tides of trends and the latest novelties.”

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To hear a child say, “I’m bored,” is a frightening thing. We hear it all the time. We don’t know what to do.

The temptation is to be blackmailed — to give children even more of the very “trends and novelties” which are white-anting their souls.

Must their lives centre forever around the shopping mall and what can be bought there or shoplifted there?

See them practising at being little middle-aged robots. See them “hanging out” in the mall with like-minded, unprogrammed automatons — bored, bitter and meaningless already.

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We educate them in the technological questions of “how?” Secular education ignores and lampoons all questions of “why?”

The answer to questions of “why?” ultimately relate to God.

Love for God is what could save them – and us.

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Another beautiful quote: “O God, my love for you ought to be total, infinite in desire; because you will not give yourself entirely to a soul unless it gives itself wholly to you. I must not cling to any attachment, nor admit even a single voluntary imperfection, nor refuse you anything . . . .

“Seeking sacrifice in the smiling acceptance of suffering, O God, for love of you, I want to take advantage of the little opportunities, so that I may be strong in the big ones.”  (Sister Carmela of the Holy Spirit)

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Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, a key day in the Christian year, a day to begin in earnest to mentally approach Good Friday, Easter and all that they mean.

They mean everything.

More about that tomorrow.