The Pilgrim Soul

This month, we are discussing love for the poor—the subject of Pope Leo XVI’s first Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te. What does it mean that God ‘prefers’ the poor? How and why is our faith manifest in caring for those in poverty? Have we experienced  such charity as reciprocal? //

Our media recommendation is Vincent Van Gogh’s The Good Samaritan. And our monthly challenge is to give alms, being attentive to spontaneous opportunities to do so. //

We’d love to hear from you! Write to us at ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ or find us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@pilgrimsoulpodcast⁠⁠. Our website is ⁠⁠www.pilgrimsoulpodcast.com⁠⁠. //

Other resources we mention:

• Fr. Luigi Giussani’s booklet “The Meaning of Charitable Work"
• The documentary “Outcasts” about the Franciscan Friars of Renewal (trailer here) //

Our theme music is Nich Lampson’s “Dolphin Kicks.” 

This month, to celebrate the end of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope, we have a conversation with our friend Amanda Achtman about her mission. Amanda is the founder of Dying to Meet You, a project of cultural renewal to prevent euthanasia and encourage hope. How did she arrive at this mission? What needs, desires, and forms of suffering has she discovered in the hearts of others–and her own? Where can any of us derive hope in the face of death? //

Our media recommendation is Fr. Alfred Delp’s book of sermons Advent of the Heart. And our monthly challenge is to light a candle and ponder Pope Benedict XVI’s words that “dying is the way a candle gives light.” //

We’d love to hear from you! Write to us at ⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠ or find us on Instagram at ⁠⁠@pilgrimsoulpodcast⁠⁠. Our website is ⁠⁠www.pilgrimsoulpodcast.com⁠⁠.

Amanda’s website is DyingtoMeetYou.com. You can also find her on X-formerly-known-as-Twitter @AmandaAchtman, and read her writing in a variety of places including Public Discourse. //

Other resources we mention:

• St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross’ meditation “The Hidden Life and Epiphany”

• A talk by Luigi Giussani to a group of students in 1976

• Pope Francis’ audience on August 27, 2022 

• Mother Teresa’s book “Heart of Joy”

• Amanda’s video vignettes of lives affected by euthanasia

• Pope Benedict XVI’s homily from the 2009 Easter Vigil 

• Caryll Houselander’s work “The Way of the Cross”

• Pope Benedict XVI’s book “Introduction to Christianity” // 

Our theme music is Nich Lampson’s “Dolphin Kicks.” 

Join Adrianna, Giuli and Sofi for a conversation on the art and science of care. Can our power to medically intervene serve, instead of competing with, our task to affirm and accompany those who suffer? What makes Christian care distinctive? How can medicine come closer to its origin in the mercy of God? This episode was inspired by the 2025 MedConference. You can learn more at theAAMP.org //

Our media recommendation is Arthur Kleinman’sThe Soul of Care. And our monthly challenge is to ask God how you are a caretaker for Him and He is a caretaker for you. //

We’d love to hear from you! Write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at @pilgrimsoulpodcast. Our website is www.pilgrimsoulpodcast.com. //

Other resources we mention:

• Luigi Giussani’s booklet “The Meaning of Charitable Work"
• Luigi Giussani’s book “In Search of the Human Face”
• Sigrid Undset’s biography of Catherine of Siena //

Our theme music is Nich Lampson’s “Dolphin Kicks.”

In honor of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope, we are joined by our friend David Dorsey for a conversation about hope: What does it mean to be a pilgrim of hope? How can the experience of profound loss open the heart to be surprised, daily, by the gift of hope? What educates us in this poverty of spirit? //

David’s media recommendations are an essay by Walker Percy called “The Loss of the Creature” and Louis de Wohl’s book “Saint Helena and the True Cross”. And our monthly challenge is to engage in some form of  charitable work. //

We’d love to hear from you! Write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at @pilgrimsoulpodcast.  Our website is www.pilgrimsoulpodcast.com. We’d be happy to pass on any questions to David. //

Other resources we mention: 

• Pope Leo’s homily from the Jubilee of Youth on August 3 2025
• Pope Leo’s Q&A with young people on August 2 2025
• Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi
• Pope Francis’ papal bull for the Jubilee Spes Non Confundit
• Luigi Giussani’s book, “In Search of the Human Face”
• The Confessions of Saint Augustine
• Luigi Giussani’s book “The Religious Sense”
• A pamphlet on the meaning of charitable work //

Our theme music is Nich Lampson’s “Dolphin Kicks.”

This month we’re sharing responses to questions asked by you, our listeners. The questions center around living a charism in the Church, accompanying others in the spiritual life, discerning God’s will for your life, and growing–daily, concretely–in a loving relationship with Christ. Thank you to everyone who submitted a question! //

We’d love to hear from you. Write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at @pilgrimsoulpodcast.  Our website is www.pilgrimsoulpodcast.com. //

Other resources we mention:

• Pope Leo’s June 6th 2025 address to lay movements
• Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
• Pope Francis’ October 15th 2022 address to Communion & Liberation
• Alberto Savorana’s biography The Life of Luigi Giussani
• An excerpt of a dialogue with Fr. Javier Prades called The Rhythm of the Mystery
• Mother Mary Francis’ book “My Beloved is Mine and I am His” \\

Our theme music is Nich Lampson’s “Dolphin Kicks.”

Join us for the first-ever in-person episode of The Pilgrim Soul! During their vacation together in Idaho, Giuli, Sofi and Adrianna had a conversation about leisure. What is leisure? How are we tempted to distort it? What instead is its right relationship to prayer, work, and community? How are we educated in a true use of our free time? //

Our media recommendation is Louis Armstrong’s song What a Wonderful World, which you can find on Spotify or on YouTube. Our monthly challenge is to take a moment one evening to look at the stars. //

We’d love to hear from you! Write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at @pilgrimsoulpodcast.  Our website is www.pilgrimsoulpodcast.com. //

Other resources we mention:

• Josef Pieper’s book “Leisure, the Basis of Culture”
• Fr. Luigi Giussani’s book “The Religious Sense”
• The Diary of St. Faustina Kowalska
• An excerpt from The Portal of the Mystery of Hope, a poem by Charles Peguy \\

Our theme music is Nich Lampson’s “Dolphin Kicks."

This month, Adrianna, Sofi, and Giuli are joined by their friend Fr. John Nepil for a conversation on how the encounter with Christ transforms the experience of the wilderness. Fr. John is a priest of the Archdiocese of Denver, a member of the Companions of Christ, and co-host of the podcast Catholic Stuff You Should Know. This conversation draws on his excellent book “To Heights and Unto Depths: Letters from the Colorado Trail” which was recently published by Ignatius Press and is also available on Amazon. //

Fr. John’s media recommendations are the writing of Wendell Berry, such as the novel Jayber Crow (or Sofi’s favorite is his book of sabbath poems, A Timbered Choir), and the music of Gregory Alan Isakov. His monthly challenge is to reread Chapters 1-2 of Genesis in a place of creation, whether the backcountry or your own backyard. //

We’d love to hear from you! Write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at @pilgrimsoulpodcast.  Our website is www.pilgrimsoulpodcast.com. We’d be happy to pass on any questions to Fr. John. //

Other resources we mention:

• Luigi Giussani’s book The Religious Sense
• Pope Benedict XVI’s address “The Feeling of Things, the Contemplation of Beauty”
• Romano Guardini’s book The Essence of Christianity
• The testimony of Jone Echarri about her paralysis \\

Our theme music is Nich Lampson’s “Dolphin Kicks.”

This month, we’re sharing a talk Sofi gave to the Word on Fire Institute on Our Lady as “The Certainty of Our Hope”. You can find a PDF of the paintings Sofi references on our website. //

The great desire of the human heart is for perfect happiness, total love, lasting fulfillment—for union with God. This destiny is possible in Jesus Christ. But we can lose hope, stumbling or growing discouraged over the ordinary challenges of life. Mary, the Mother of God, gives certainty to our hope. Mary stands at the heart of salvation history as the one through whom God fulfills his promises. Throughout her pilgrimage of faith, from the Annunciation to the Cross to her Assumption, her virginal surrender to the Mystery gives form to His presence in the world and strength to those who believe in Him. In her, each member of the Church discovers a mother who accompanies, educates, and sustains us on our path to our destiny. //

We’d love to hear from you! Write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at @pilgrimsoulpodcast.  Our website is www.pilgrimsoulpodcast.com. //

Our theme music is Nich Lampson’s “Dolphin Kicks.”

If you have a question you'd like us to discuss on the episode, please email us by June 21st: [email protected].

Adrianna, Sofi, and Giuli have a conversation about mission. What is the communal task entrusted to the baptized? What does it look like to live our individual responsibility for the glory of Christ? How does God’s initiative of mercy enable us to embrace the slightest fragment of truth or goodness wherever we find it? //

Our media recommendation is The Universal Call to Holiness, a relief in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC (virtual tour). And our monthly challenge is to reflect on the apocryphal story of Jesus and the dead dog (cited on page 117 of this PDF), and to ask, in whatever situation of death or emptiness comes to mind, to recognize and embrace the good present there as Christ does.  //

We’d love to hear from you! Write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram at @pilgrimsoulpodcast.  Our website is www.pilgrimsoulpodcast.com. //

Other resources we mention:

• An excerpt from Generating Traces in the History of the World on mission and ecumenism 
• The video The Faith of Fr. Giussani
• A speech by Pope Pius XII cited in Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Christifidelis laici 
• Bishop Erik Varden’s April 27 interview in The Pillar on the conclave 
• Fr. Luigi Giussani’s letters to the first missionaries from Communion & Liberation to Brazil
• The Ways of the Cross organized by Communion & Liberation throughout the USA
• Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium 
• Bishop Erik Varden’s recent talk on “Living with Wounds” at the University of Notre Dame 
• The story of Elvira Parravicini’s work in neonatal palliative care
• Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church //

Our theme music is Nich Lampson’s “Dolphin Kicks.”