Outward Signs

This collection of seven stories suggests that sacramental power can erupt in startling ways outside the normal context: a baptism conducted in the Gulf of Mexico by a crazed evangelical; a paralyzed skier who uses her handicap to dissuade from suicide; an altar boy’s burial of the Eucharist under a Japanese maple; a religious confession at a health club; a priest clad in dubious tuxedo whose last sermon gives “unction” to a lapsed Catholic; a laicized priest called to anoint a dying woman; a young deacon pressed to “exorcise” a couple trapped in a demonic marriage. These stories confirm what Bernanos wrote in the Diary of a Country Priest: “Grace is everywhere.”