SACRAMENTS OF LOVE

Fifteen months (September 1991—December 1992) in the life of sociologist, novelist, poet, essayist, and Catholic priest Greeley (Fall From Grace, etc. etc. etc.). One immense idea underlies all of Greeley's works: the celebration of God as lover and beloved. Here, journal entries address God as ``my love'' and sign off with ``I love you.'' Greeley whispers secrets to God, praises him, pleads with him. Always, he admires God's playfulness; visiting the Chicago Oceanarium, he wonders whether ``anyone without a great sense of fun...and a wild imagination [would] have come up with such marvelous creatures?'' Often he turns introspective, wondering about his role as priest and novelist: How to reconcile activism with dislike of self-promotion? How to preside at a wedding without deflecting attention from the bride and groom? Public life grinds him down: ``I treat myself like a machine to produce work to please others'' (this machine metaphor crops up more than once). A current crisis—pedophilia in the priesthood—darkens the year, but mostly Greeley thanks God for abundant blessings: renewed affiliation with the University of Chicago; repair of a strained friendship with his bishop; a meeting with actress Kathleen Turner, who proved to be an ardent fan. Marking his birthday, he sends up the exclamation: ``Sixty-four years drenched in grace!'' He reads voraciously (Seamus Heaney, John Shea, Paul Davies); goes to the opera, movies, and football games; scribbles haiku; tosses in the occasional brilliant literary insight (e.g., that Flaubert despised his characters). Plenty of prayers here—for Greeley, his friends, his enemies- -but more the journal of an exceptionally active man whose life, or so he prays, is ``possessed by love.''