Tales of passion, licit or otherwise, action-packed, adventure-packed, slightly implausible, usually not what you’d call "literature" in terms of writing quality. The kind of book you read when you’re bored and a bit tired and don’t feel up to tackling a Russian novel or the latest papal encyclical. (Not that readers of Restoration would ever feel that way, right?)

It’s quite an industry, the "trashy novel"’ industry. I can’t quote you figures (for the excellent reason that I haven’t bothered to look any up), but clearly millions of such books are sold.

Every airport, every supermarket, everywhere you turn, the latest Danielle Steele/Sidney Sheldon/Judith Krantz bit of pot-boiling nonsense is staring at you (not that readers of… well, you get the point).

As far as I know, the whole thing of trashy novels as big business began about fifty years ago with a novel entitled Peyton Place. Named after the fictional small town it was set in, it laid down the format for the genre. The basic idea (not that I’ve read the thing, mind you) was along the lines of "underneath the tranquil exterior of the town lay a web of intrigue, passion, and explosive secrets…"

It was all the scandalous rage fifty years ago, although it would probably be a pretty tame read by today’s standards.

So where am I going with all this? Well, it seems to me that there’s a reason millions of these romantic, fluffy novels sell every year. Some people, at least, can’t get enough of them.

Add in the harmless variations on the same idea—thrillers, murder mysteries, stories of adventure on the high sea and the like—and is there anyone who doesn’t read such escape novels from time to time—readers of Restoration included?

It’s the whole idea of life being exciting, glamorous, adventurous, action-packed, isn’t it? The whole idea that, "under the boring exterior" of life can lie passion and thrills, cheap or otherwise. The idea of life being romantic.

Seems to me we all hanker after that, and the vicarious thrills provided by whatever species of light reading you favor simply cater to that desire. Oh, for an exciting life! Oh, for just a wee bit of Peyton Place!

This is not, at least in its origin, the sinful temptation to illicit pleasure, nor the lust of the flesh, nor the desire to escape the responsibilities of one’s real life. We all desire a life full of meaning, full of incident and importance, a life full of… well… life.

God meets this desire. God, in fact, shares this desire. The trouble with the trashy novel, of course, is that after it’s all over, after we learn whodunit, after Scarlett returns to Tara, or boy and girl live happily ever after against all odds, well, it’s over.

Back we go to routine, monotonous, humdrum living, until the next novel grabs us. The vicarious, implausible thrills of a fictional romance or an imaginary adventure don’t quite meet the real desire of our hearts.

But life should mean something. Life is supposed to be about something. Life is supposed to be, in the deepest sense of the word, a story. Not just a random sequence of events, but a narrative, an epic, even. We know this, but we don’t always find our way to the epic sweep, the grand literary theme and import, of our own lives. We don’t always see the point.

God sees it, though. He is the Author of Life, after all, of your life and mine. And life is, in fact, a romance, a high adventure, a mystery. Life is thrilling, if you find the right place to live it.

That right place isn’t Peyton Place. It’s life in Christ that thrills and never grows dull—life lived as a grand love affair with the Lord.

Life lived uniting ourselves to him, the Bridegroom of humanity, life lived bringing every moment of humdrum, gray, ordinary existence, every menial task, every normal day, to him who offered up his life for the world.

It’s a life of bringing him all the diapers and dishrags, memos and meetings, commutes and car pools and committees, all of it, whatever your day holds, to him. It’s a life uniting your offerings to his offering. It’s a life of loving the world with Jesus so passionately that you give your life for it.

This offering happens at every Mass. We put ourselves in the bread, in the wine, as it goes to the altar. The priest says the words, and everything changes. Bread and wine become body and blood. Your life and mine, drab affairs that they seem to be, are transformed.

Under the surface of our ordinary lives are passion, meaning, cosmic battles between good and evil, souls hanging in the balance, embraces of love between Christ and us. And all of it is lived in the darkness of faith.

It isn’t Peyton Place; it’s "Paten Place." It’s living our lives on the paten which carries the bread to him who makes it his Body.

Christ says the words, and everything changes: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him (Jn 14:23).

Our quenchless thirst for excitement, for meaning, for adventure and romance, is nothing less than our thirst for God. He can change the dullest day, the most tiresome task, the darkest hour, into something radiant, magnificent, shining, heroic.

And the best thing of all? The story of your life is a true story. And the happy ending God wants to write for it is no ending at all, but an ever-renewed beginning: life forever with him and all his friends in heaven.

Now that’s a book we all want to read.