Young people seem to know where the answers are.

‘I feel the nuns have been expecting us. They knew our last nerve would disappear at some point.”

The quote is from a piece in Vice. (How perfect is that?!) “Gen Z Women Are Booking Convents Instead of Beach Houses This Summer.” The subhead reads: “Move over, shared beach houses and Aperol spritzes. This summer, a growing number of Gen Z women are checking into Catholic convents and monasteries instead — on purpose.” They are not staying for good. Convents typically have “come and see” weekends for women who want to observe religious life, but the young women discussed in the article are not considering becoming sisters. Convents are offering a service to an overwhelmed population in need of quiet time with God.

According to Vice (I’ll never get over that):

Monasteries and convents are now seeing waitlists as young women line up for a kind of stillness that’s hard to come by elsewhere. No phones buzzing, no endless notifications, and definitely no small talk. Instead, many are spending their days tending gardens, attending prayer services, and catching up with themselves.

My tribe, Gen X (the overlooked generation), did not invent the idea. I’ve spent more than my fair share of time on convent weekends and have often found myself surprised, and exhilarated, by whom I’ve seen there. Having witnessed new Catholics pack churches during long Masses the night before Easter morning, the rise of public Eucharistic processions (which take devotion beyond the walls of a church), and the countless millions who watched live streams of a chimney for a glimpse of white smoke (which turned out to indicate the election of the first American pope), I see something hopeful happening. I’d say it is mysterious, except that it makes all the sense in the world. People aren’t happy and want to be. We just celebrated the founding of our country, which has from its beginning cherished the pursuit of happiness as a protected good! We want something more than the pressures and fears and burdens of everyday life. We need to know that it all means something. We want to trust that there is something more.

Just to name a few offerings in the New York City metro area: In Stamford, Conn., the Sisters of Life run a retreat house for the Knights of Columbus. They book quickly. On the Long Island Sound in Darien, Conn., there’s an extraordinarily beautiful bed-and-breakfast-type guesthouse run by the Brigittines (an order of nuns whose motherhouse is in Italy, though many of the sisters are from India and elsewhere). The website suggests that it’s a hideout for artists and academics. I made use of it when on a deadline (which I subsequently blew through, because I didn’t stay long enough) for a book on prayer, A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living. I should have stayed a year, but the longest stretch I had the sisters put up with me was two weeks. As at any other sweet place on the sound, your hosts will feed you and change your linens. And you’ll also have the opportunity for Mass and prayer in Eucharistic adoration. The chapel is never locked; a guest is always welcome to spend time alone there with God. (The amazingly lifelike Jesus on the crucifix behind the altar makes prayer there just about the easiest thing in the world.)

The Brigittines, founded by a great mystic, Bridget of Sweden, are known for their hospitality. And so they were when I was looking for a place for a 30-day retreat in the tradition of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and his demandingly fruitful Spiritual Exercises. In the Franciscan town of Assisi, the sisters welcomed an American in silence. (We may have snuck in the occasional chat. They are, after all, mostly cloistered, so they wanted to talk to the strange American who wrote about politics and culture and things, and I wanted to hear from women who knew about more important things! How refreshing their life would be. Though the grass is probably always greener. . . .)

Most of us are neither Gen Z gals nor Catholic nuns (God bless those who are). Rather than join the waiting list of a convent, you may just have to make do with a copy of my book off Amazon. Or, you may learn a life-changing fact from Gary Jansen and his much smaller, cheaper book The 15-Minute Prayer Solution, in which he points out that 15 minutes is just 1 percent of your day. Okay, so your phone may be constantly blowing up. Your baby may not be sleeping at night. The bills are making you work extra shifts. And these may be only a few of the sources of noise in your life. You can still dedicate 1 percent of each day to God, your Creator, the Creator of the universe. Call it self-care.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.