In his book "Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear," Michael O’Loughlin has named some of the hidden glories of the Catholic Church’s responses to H.I.V./AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States.

No one wants to be at a funeral. It means that a loss has occurred, hearts broken. But there are few other instances in which doing something we dread so deeply can mean so much.

Joan Didion was capable both of conjuring up the horrors of modern life and of offering solace that there was still a point to it all.

Here is a way to show how much you really love your children: Do the paperwork.

The pope “joins you in asking the Lord to bestow upon everyone the spiritual strength which triumphs over violence and overcomes evil with good,” said the message released Nov. 23.

You can cherish life and surrender it when you know that it is never insignificant, that your story matters, that you exist to love the author of our tale.