Front-row Vatican coverage:

Peter Gilmour

Peter Gilmour, professor emeritus of the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago, is the author of The Wisdom of Memoir: Reading and Writing Life's Sacred Texts and The Emerging Pastor: Non-ordained Catholic Pastors.

By this Author

King Arthur's knights, gathered at the Round Table to celebrate Pentecost, see a vision of the Holy Grail in this 15th-century manuscript illumination by Evrard d'Espinques. (Wikimedia Commons/Public domain/Evrard d'Espinques)

The spiritual significance of a round dinner table

Participants from around the world now gathered in Vatican City for the 2024 global synod meeting are seated at round tables. It's nice to know that the church has begun to imagine its sacred identity as a circle. 

People riding on a bus (Unsplash/Mark Cook)

My Sunday celebration of Eucharist begins on a Chicago bus

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is in the midst of a multi-million dollar campaign to reinforce belief in the real presence of the Eucharist. But the real presence of Christ freely reveals itself to us, everywhere we look.

The Bible open to the Book of Proverbs, sitting next to a coffee cup (Unsplash/Alex Shute)

Slouching toward Easter with the Wisdom books

This Lent, I have decided to reread the Wisdom literature from the Bible. These books focus on life here and now on planet Earth. I have come more and more to appreciate this focus as I live longer and longer.

(Unsplash/Ed Robertson)

Soul-seeing sacramentals that stop us in our tracks

Soul Seeing: Like the Book of Proverbs, a cornucopia of pithy sayings, my underlinings encapsule challenging thoughts that touch into the depths of life, love, faith and the divine presence — soul-seeing sacramentals.

An illustration shows NASA's Perseverance Mars rover, which landed on the planet Feb. 18. (CNS illustration/JPL-Caltech, NASA handout via Reuters)

A meditation on Mars, and beyond

Soul Seeing: A rover has been searching for signs of life on Mars. Might its findings challenge our religious beliefs about God, or help to narrow the centuries-old gulf between faith and science?

Man standing on rocky shore of Algeria (Unsplash/Benoumechiara)

For Lent, it's watermelon and large curd cottage cheese versus the Psalms

Soul Seeing for Lent: The relevance of Psalms written, some perhaps set to musical accompaniment thousands of years ago, is a contemporary miracle. Maybe it's time to give up what you were planning to do without this Lent and look to the Psalms instead.

Armchair pilgrimages are meditations during the pandemic

Soul Seeing: This time of pandemic has had its challenges for those who find spiritual insight and inspiration traveling, myself included. God's presence extends well beyond the parochial limitations of church buildings.

Instead of televised Mass, I pray Teilhard's 'Mass on the World'

Commentary: I am a churchgoing Catholic who does not care for broadcast liturgies. During isolation, I opt for Jesuit Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's "The Mass on the World."

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