Sea monsters, the Boston Red Sox, Vikings, and the end of the world—enter Peter Kreeft’s one and only novel.
Playful, tragic, and audaciously hopeful, An Ocean Full of Angels explores the unseen drama beneath modern history, where Islam and Christianity collide and grace moves like a hidden tide beneath ordinary lives.
An Ocean Full of Angels
By Peter Kreeft
Word on Fire Luminor | April 27, 2026
Hardcover | 432 Pages | 6” x 9”
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About An Ocean Full of Angels
“Salve, porta,” declares the ancient Marian antiphon Ave Regina Caelorum. “Hail, Gate of Heaven.” This is just one of the countless titles lavished on Mary, the Mother of Jesus, throughout two thousand years of Catholic tradition: she is the New Eve, the Ark of the Covenant, the Seat of Wisdom, the Morning Star, the Mystical Rose—the list goes on and on.
But is all of this emphasis on Mary unbiblical or unnecessary? What is Marian devotion all about?
Gate of Heaven: Reflections on the Mother of God offers readers of all backgrounds—Catholic, non-Catholic, and even non-Christian—a meditative summation of the Church’s love for Mary. This unique collection features passages from Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and various saints and spiritual masters; a rich treasury of prayers, poems, and hymns; and a foreword and poetry from Sally Read, the author of The Mary Pages: An Atheist’s Journey to the Mother of God. Structured around the four Marian dogmas, four Marian antiphons, and four key roles of Mary revealed in Scripture—Daughter of Zion, Mother of Jesus, Mother of the Church, and Queen of Heaven—these pages invite us into the Church’s loving gaze, one that always looks through Mary to Christ, and through the gate to the heaven it contained.
A haunted coastline. A Muslim philosopher. A prophecy about “hastening the sun.” In his only novel, Peter Kreeft trades syllogisms for sea storms and gives us ‘Isa ben Adam—philosopher, fighter, lover, possible messiah, definite troublemaker. Raised on the rocky shores of New England, ‘Isa grows up believing the ocean breathes because an angel lives inside it. He may be right.
What follows is not a tidy interfaith parable but a theological carnival. In one improbable household gather a Dutch Calvinist seminarian, a sharp-tongued Black feminist allergic to religious pretension, mystics who may be saints or madmen, skeptics, seekers, and accidental prophets arguing about God over dinner while history burns outside the door. There are sea serpents and rogue waves, a demon named Hurricano, and something suspiciously like Armageddon at Fenway Park.
Playful, tragic, and audaciously hopeful, An Ocean Full of Angels explores the unseen drama beneath modern history, where Islam and Christianity collide and grace moves like a hidden tide beneath ordinary lives. Kreeft writes with the wit of Chesterton and the moral fire of Dostoevsky, inviting readers to discover a world far more crowded—and far more meaningful—than it appears.
Here’s What People Are Saying . . .
“Every time I read Peter Kreeft, I am reminded of C. S. Lewis. This time, upon reading Peter Kreeft’s only novel, I am reminded of C. S. Lewis’s greatest novel, Till We Have Faces. As with Lewis’s literary masterpiece, An Ocean Full of Angels will mystify the reader. But it will do more than that. It will mystify in order to testify. It takes us to the place where the deepest mysteries of the cosmos are solved and resolved. It takes us to that sacred space where theological faith and philosophical reason meet. An Ocean Full of Angels is a journey to the center of the truth, taking us through the realm of mystery to the presence of Mystery Himself.”
– Joseph Pearce, author of Beauteous Truth: Faith, Reason, Literature, and Culture and editor of the St. Austin Review
“Reading Peter Kreeft’s work never ceases to feel like riding a magic carpet—pure adventure, both heavily philosophical and deeply readable. This novel dazzlingly tells the story of humanity through the eyes of a clear-eyed narrator. ‘Isa Ben Adam’s tale is a masterpiece from one of Catholicism’s truest masters.”
– Claire Swinarski, author of The Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County and The Very Best Mother
“With characteristic wit and insight, Peter Kreeft plunges us into deep mystical waters in An Ocean Full of Angels. . . . A novel that portrays a world ‘charged with the grandeur of God’ while pulling back the veil on the unseen battle between heaven and hell.”
– Rhonda Ortiz, author of the Molly Chase novels and editor in chief of Dappled Things magazine
“An Ocean Full of Angels is a novel that could only come from the mind of Kreeft: unflinching in its devotion to the Truth.”
– Sohrab Ahmari, best-selling author of From Fire, By Water and The Unbroken Thread
What Is Luminor?
Led by editor Katy Carl, Word on Fire Luminor serves to publish novels, short stories, memoirs, poetry, literary criticism, and more, highlighting fresh voices that bring to life once more the rich tradition of Catholic literature for today and years to come. Luminor seeks to illuminate the Catholic vision of life for serious readers of any faith or none.
“A major revival in Catholic arts and letters has been underway for a while now, and it’s a real joy to me to be able not only to nurture that existing community but also to expand its reach to readers who haven’t yet encountered it. Word on Fire Luminor is ready to shine a light into some of the contemporary world’s dark places,” said Carl.
“Great works of Catholic literature animated by the true and the beautiful—Dante’s Divine Comedy, Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, the short stories of Flannery O’Connor—so powerfully awaken the soul to Truth and Beauty itself,” said Bishop Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire and bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester. “I’m delighted that Word on Fire is stepping into this great literary tradition with Luminor, and bringing out from that treasury both classics of old and emerging talents of today.”
About the Luminor Logo
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Luminor’s name is inspired by the concept of luminaria, small festival lanterns often used to line a path or to create a patterned display.
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The first luminaria were made by lighting the cones of pine trees, which release their seeds only in the presence of fire.
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Luminor’s pine cone logo represents the presence of “seeds of the Word,” which, under the right conditions, can move from modest beginnings to glorious growth.
“When people hear that I wrote a ‘novel’ and ask what it is about, I tell them (1) that it’s not a novel and (2) that it’s about an angel’s-eye view of the connections between Jesus Christ, Muhammad, dead Vikings, sassy Black feminists, Dutch Calvinist seminarians, very large Mother-substitutes, armless nature-mystics, Caribbean rubber dancers, the Wandering Jew, angels in disguise, three popes in one year, Cortez, Romeo and Juliet, the sea serpent, our Lady of Guadalupe, the demon Hurricano, Islam in the art of body surfing, the universal fate wave theory, the Palestinian intifadah, the fatal beauty of the sea, dreams of Jungian archetypes, the dooms of the Boston Red Sox, the abortion wars, the Great Blizzard of ’78, the wisdom of the ‘handicapped,’ the ecumenical jihad, the psychology of suicide, and the end of the world. But that’s an oversimplification.
Obviously, it’s messy—like the universe. It’s got a thousand times more stuff in it than it needs to have. If you don’t like that sort of thing, I guess you don’t like the human body, the planet, or the universe you’re living in. My book has all those gargoyles in it because reality does; because Shakespeare is right when his Hamlet corrects Horatio’s skepticism of ghosts by telling him that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.’ ”
— PETER KREEFT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Peter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and the author of more than one hundred books. His many bestsellers cover a vast array of topics in spirituality, theology, and philosophy. They include The Philosophy of Tolkien, Christianity for Modern Pagans, Ethics for Beginners, God on Stage, the Socrates’ Children series, the Socrates Meets series, and the Food for the Soul series.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Peter Kreeft is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and the author of more than one hundred books. His many bestsellers cover a vast array of topics in spirituality, theology, and philosophy. They include The Philosophy of Tolkien, Christianity for Modern Pagans, Ethics for Beginners, God on Stage, the Socrates’ Children series, the Socrates Meets series, and the Food for the Soul series.
Contents
To My Readers
1 The Beginning of the Autobiography of 'Isa ben Adam
2 Papa
3 Mama
4 Night
5 Mother
6 The House of Bread
7 Nahant
8 Housebugs
9 Therefore All Sins Are Sins Against the Sea
10 Saint Michael's Bloody Sword
11 Hurricano
12 War in the Womb
13 The Book of Love
14 The Sea Serpent
15 The Summer of Love
16 The World Splits in Two
17 Islam in the Art of Bodysurfing
18 Ecumenical Jihad
19 The Angel's Fall
20 Armageddon at Fenway Park
21 Into the Abyss
22 Resurrection
23 Vikings on Nahant
24 Threads
Postscript
