“It is the business of the artist to uncover the strangeness of truth.”Flannery O’Connor It’s often said that truth is stranger than fiction. Nobody is more familiar with this reality than Fr. Damian Ference, who, as a priest, is often witness to life’s most dramatic and mysterious events. In his new book, The Strangeness of Truth, meditations on the incarnation and resurrection are presented alongside scenes from his own life: a midnight call to the ICU t...

God is infinitely good, and God knows what we need to feel safe and loved and happy. One of the ways people feel safe is through the establishment of habits, or rituals, activities that through time and repetition become a touchstone. We’ve all experienced rituals in our ordinary day-to-day lives. When my stepchildren were young, I wanted to expose them to a wide range of reading material, to challenge them. They, on the other hand, wanted the same book read to them night af...

“Come to me, all of you,” Jesus said to then-sixteen-year-old James Alberione. It was December 31, 1900, the famous “Night Between the Centuries” when James was praying in the Cathedral of Alba. “Come to me, all of you.” James, I want you to bring me all the people of this new century. I want them all, and I want you to bring them to me using the “new means” of communication. But first I want you to bring me yourself, James...

January 18 is, believe it or not, National Thesaurus Day! And for someone like me who loves words, it’s a great holiday to celebrate. But it also got me to thinking about the many different ways we refer to God—the thesaurus of the Bible, if you will.Here at the Pauline Books & Media publishing house, there is a poster we pass many times a day, as it hangs in a busy corridor. It lists the many ways Scripture refers to Jesus:And thou shalt call his name Jesus, Prince of Peace, Mig...

I’m always hyper-aware of Martin Luther King Jr. Day for several reasons. My own birthday falls right around the same time. I did my doctoral work at Boston University, as did the Rev. Dr. King; in many ways he is still a presence around the B.U. School of Theology. And I am, as are we all, deeply aware of his writing, his sermons, and the influence he had on the American psyche.But as a Catholic, I’m always looking a little deeper. What sort of spiritual practice undergirded what he...