Back in January, I was invited to lead a day-long workshop for Catholic school leaders in the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon. The topic that I was asked to address was “Catholic education as a healing ministry of the Church.” It is an important topic, and one that I have experienced, researched, written and spoken about, and given much prayer and thought to over the years.
Last January, the topic carried a heaviness. I traveled from Minneapolis which was struggling with the indescribable trauma of the horrific Annunciation Catholic school shooting along with the immense suffering caused by Operation Metro Surge. Healing was top on everyone’s mind.
In addition to the local challenges that my community faced, healing is needed at the national level. We continue to experience division, violence, distrust, and discord. Additionally, at the individual level, many struggle with anxiety, depression, loneliness, and despair. And some, like myself, have experienced burnout.
In my research, writings, conversations with countless individuals, and in my prayer, one word continues to percolate to the surface—a word that is a crucial element on the path toward healing and wholeness. This word that is so necessary to recover from suffering of any kind, and is needed to live a life of wellbeing and joy, is the word “relationship.”
Although it may seem obvious that relationship is important to our overall healing and wholeness, it is a concept that is increasingly becoming neglected. With social media and AI chatbots, people are disregarding healthy human relationships for digital chats with algorithms. As Pope Leo XIV states in his recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, “The danger [with AI] is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections” (§100).
Additionally, not only are human relationships being neglected, our relationship with God is also often overlooked in the world of healing and wellness. In her August 2026 Word on Fire article, Johanna Duncan observes, “Wellness culture…engages in the ritual and the sense of the sacred, but it empties it of the one thing that makes it work: the disposition toward encountering God and being changed by the surrender we experience in his presence.” She goes on to acknowledge that prayer, which in the wellness world might be aligned with mindfulness, meditation, or journaling, “isn’t a mood you curate; it’s a conversation with Someone…it’s building a relationship.”
Indeed, relationship is the essence of prayer and the foundation of our growth and our hope. And yet prayer as relationship with our Triune God can feel challenging at times.
In a recent conversation, a woman confided with me that she was struggling with her prayers. Distractions and dryness had led to discouragement. As she shared with me her meditative difficulties, inwardly I thought, “Boy, can I relate.”
In fact, I think that most people who have committed to daily prayer for any length of time can relate to these challenges. The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to prayer as a battle, and many of the greatest saints also discuss the challenges of prayer.
The woman then mentioned that she was seeking different techniques, tools, and prayer forms to help her persevere during this difficult time. In truth, during difficult seasons of prayer, it can be helpful to add a new resource to our daily prayer practices. Likewise, during special seasons of the year (such as Advent and Lent), it can also be of value to adopt additional meditative practices to help us better enter into the season. Fr. Gabriel Mary Fiore, CSJ has provided just such a resource with his new book, The Saint John Prayerbook: Biblical Meditations and Prayers Inspired by the Beloved Disciple.
When I consider the people who were in closest relationship to Christ while He lived on earth, His mother comes first to mind, followed closely by John, the disciple “whom He loved.” For a world that is hurting, and for individuals who suffer, the image of the beloved disciple reclining upon the chest of Our Lord (Jn. 13:23-25) is an image of the safety, trust, and relationship that I desire to have with Jesus.
Prayer as Relationship Rather Than an Item on a To-do List
In fact, this image of relationship shifts my approach to prayer. Rather than an item on a daily checklist, it becomes an invitation to grow in friendship. This image of the beloved disciple with Our Lord invites me to place my fears, sorrows, and suffering upon Christ, and to recline in trust, love, and hope.
Abbot Jeremy Driscoll, OSB, has said that, upon opening the fourth gospel, the “reader bends toward belief and begins to feel a new kind of life associated with encountering Jesus.” Likewise, those who meditate upon the Johannine gospel passages and reflections that Fr. Fiore includes in his book will have a similar response.
And while Fr. Fiore masterfully weaves in Scriptural references and theological truths throughout the meditations, rather than giving us a scholarly study of John’s gospel, Fr. Fiore has pastorally gifted us with a contemplative tool that invites readers into deeper relationship with the Lord.
In praying with his text, I found myself appreciating the cadence and contemplation that his prayers provide. In fact, while reading his meditation for John 2:3, “They have no wine,” my response was one of silence as I considered all the needs of the world, of Holy Mother Church, of my local community in Minneapolis that still suffers from the trauma of the past twelve months, and the needs of my own family. For these and other intentions I found myself sitting with Christ, using the words of His Mother as recorded by St. John and highlighted by Fr. Fiore, “Lord, [we/I] have no wine.”
Healing is needed in our world and in our individual lives today. Many wellness experts will offer recommended tips for regaining a life of wholeness. I have discovered in my research, my work, and my lived experience that relationships are a crucial component to the healing process. These relationships include healthy human relationships, and they also include relationship with Our Lord. A daily practice of prayer helps us to build that relationship, especially when we imagine our prayers to be in the posture of St. John, the beloved disciple. St. John reclined upon Our Lord, he journeyed with Him to the Mount of Transfiguration, and he remained with Him at the cross. Prayer is relationship, and it is a relationship that can lead us to living a life of healing and hope.
St. John, pray for us.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
