Finding Spiritual Companions: A Journey Through Fate, and the People Who Show Up

I traveled to Maui with my family for a well-deserved vacation. I rented a Harley motorcycle, and the rest of the family rode in an open-top jeep to tour the countryside. It was one of the perfect days in the history of perfect days on Maui. The sky and the ocean seemed to share the same color and blended as they met at the horizon. We pulled over for a quick fuel break at a convenience station by a bay. I sat on my rented Harley, gazing out at the majestic scenery as I waited for my family to reconvene. Boats, ships, and parasailers dotted the horizon, creating a perfect panoramic picture. Then a voice, feeling, or something inner said, “You have cancer.” I didn’t say anything; I just started up the Harley and followed my family in their rented jeep. The feeling felt totally out of place, given my position in paradise. That moment—slipping from a carefree family day into an abrupt, unsettling awareness of mortality—became a turning point in my life. If you’ve ever stood at the edge of a horizon and heard a hidden message whispering a truth you weren’t prepared to hear, you know the electricity of it. The Maui scenery remained breathtaking, but my inner landscape shifted. This is not merely a cancer story; it’s a story about spiritual companionship—the quiet, steady, sometimes unseen hands that lift you when fear makes a loud racket inside your chest. The “uneventful” prognosis and the surprise call from urology. The day after we returned home, I told my wife I should see a doctor for a checkup. My wife’s “look” told me we wouldn’t be addressing this with casual urgency—she could line up the world’s best doctors at the Mayo Clinic, where she worked, in minutes. It felt like a miracle of both science and devotion. It had been nearly twenty years since my last physical, and the idea of stepping back into the medical world after so long was daunting, but necessary. The lab work came back, and the verdict was inconspicuous, even soothing to the anxious mind. The doctor said the results were “uneventful.” In medicine, “uneventful” is a blessing for a moment, a lull before the storm if the storm is coming. Almost as soon as those words left his lips, the phone rang. It was the Department of Urology, insisting that I schedule more tests. A heated exchange ensued between a physician trying to protect his patient and a department seeking to uncover another layer of this mystery. The doctor put his hand over the mouthpiece and asked me to step out so he could finish the conversation. I wasn’t worried yet, but a sense of unease settled into my bones. The world felt larger, heavier, and somehow thinner all at once. A few days later, the follow-up tests were done, and the verdict landed in my office: kidney cancer. The words did not shatter me; it was more like a door closing gently, with the echo of a life I might have lived if the road had bent differently. The most striking thing was what didn’t happen: fear, panic, or paralysis. Instead, there was a surprising emptiness, a void that felt less like fear and more like space for something else to emerge. Assisi Heights, Rochester, Minnesota, was where this new chapter began to take shape. My office shared space with about 200 Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, a community whose life I encountered as a kind of spiritual weather—a soft, persistent presence that shaped the atmosphere around us. I worshipped with them on Thursdays, and I found in their sanctuary a sense of calm, a rhythm of mercy, a cadence of prayer that steadied me when the diagnosis felt like a storm battering the gates of certainty. The Mayo Clinic’s medical team delivered world-class care, but it was the spiritual care—the daily prayers, the quiet conversations, the gentle laughter—that carried me through the most vulnerable hours. What is a spiritual companion? In plain terms, spiritual companions are the people who walk with you on your spiritual journey. They are not your soul mate, a once-in-a-late-night soulmate who completes you. They are more like sturdy signposts, patient guides, and sometimes surprising travelers who join you as you travel down life’s road for a season. They are present when you need encouragement, a listening ear, or a shared silence that helps you breathe again. They come from every walk of life—neighbors, nurses, clergy, coworkers, fellow patients, a stranger who sits with you in a waiting room, a friend who shows up with groceries, or a community of religious sisters who offer prayers that you can feel in your bones. The distinction between spiritual companions and other forms of support is more than semantic. Companions are present for a stretch of time that matters; they offer a spiritual lens through which you can view the struggles you’re facing. They invite you to notice the sacred in ordinary moments. They don’t fix you; they help you discover what you already carry inside—faith, resilience, hope, humor, and trust in something larger than yourself. When I faced kidney cancer, the sisters prayed for me before, during, and after my surgery. Their prayers didn’t erase the disease, but they created a shelter that allowed healing—physically and spiritually—to happen in an environment of peace, gratitude, and communal care. The medical procedure saved my life, but the spiritual companionship fortified me when the path ahead felt uncertain. Spiritual companionship is not a call to passivity. It’s a call to become part of a larger ecology of care where each person, each relationship, and each moment matters. The sisters didn’t simply offer prayers; they offered presence. They offered a space where fear could be named and then gently transformed into resolve. They offered practical acts of kindness—visiting hours, meals, come-and-go conversations—that reminded me I was not navigating this journey alone. The Maui day and the hospital bed share a common thread: both landscapes had a capacity to reveal what matters most when the surface of life is suddenly disturbed. On that Maui afternoon, the beauty of the sea and sky created a sensory invitation to see the world as a fragile, miraculous place. In Rochester, the gift of spiritual companionship created a parallel invitation—to see the inner landscape as a place where courage can take root, even in the face of disease. From that moment forward, I learned to distinguish between being alone and being lonely. There is a difference, and spiritual companionship helps us navigate it. Loneliness is a wound, while solitude can be a sanctuary when guided by a compassionate presence. The sisters and my medical team helped me cultivate a sanctuary inside and around me—a “refuge of hope” where faith did not erase pain but made the pain more bearable and more meaningful. A hospital room is a strange classroom, where the curriculum is resilience, patience, and gratitude. My doctors taught me the science of healing; my spiritual companions taught me the art of living. Both streams merged into a river that carried me through the next twenty years, free from cancer and heavy with the insights that only time and trouble can deliver. The illness did not define me; the response to it did. And that response was shaped by the people who walked with me—early in the morning at the Mayo Clinic, in the quiet corners of Assisi Heights, and in the daily acts of kindness that made ordinary days feel extraordinary. Let me offer a practical map of how spiritual companionship can take root in your life, whether you’re a loner who cherishes quiet, a social butterfly who thrives on community, or something in between. Start with someone you already trust.
A spiritual companion does not have to be a formal role in a church or a religious community. It can be a friend, a colleague, or a family member who embodies listening, empathy, and presence. If you’re comfortable, name what you want from the relationship: a listening ear, a conversation about faith and meaning, or a shared practice like meditation or reading. Seek communities that honor personal spiritual journeys.
Religious communities, meditation groups, service organizations, and spiritual support groups all offer channels for companionship. These communities become incubators for relationships that nurture hope in difficult times. The Mayo Clinic and many faith-based organizations publish resources for spiritual care that you can access alongside medical care. Explore reputable resources such as Mayo Clinic’s Spiritual Care and patient support pages, which emphasize the integration of medical treatment and spiritual well-being. Notice the quiet messengers in your life.
Spiritual companionship often arrives in subtle forms: a nurse’s compassionate word, a neighbor’s simple act of kindness, a stranger’s brief but comforting presence in a waiting room. Pay attention to these moments. They may be the first signals that spiritual companionship is trying to enter your life. Cultivate a reciprocal dynamic.
Companionship should feel mutual. You can be a source of encouragement and strength for others just as they are for you. When you become a companion, you step into a role that can broaden your own spiritual horizon as well as others’. Embrace the paradox: strength and vulnerability.
Spiritual companionship thrives on the paradox of being strong enough to face hardship and vulnerable enough to seek help. This duality is not a weakness; it is a testament to the human spirit’s capacity to grow through connection. Create a simple practice that anchors you.
A short daily ritual—whether it’s a moment of gratitude, a walking prayer, a quiet reading, or a journal entry about what you learned from a difficult day—can anchor your soul amid life’s storms. This practice becomes a lighthouse for you and your companions, signaling “we are in this together.” Be open to being sent as a spiritual companion yourself.
In many faith and spiritual traditions, people find themselves becoming vessels of encouragement for others at precisely the moments when someone else needs a hand to hold. You may discover that your own road has prepared you to help someone else navigate theirs. The role of place and ritual should not be underestimated. Places of worship, spiritual centers, hospices, and even neutral spaces like libraries or community centers can be environments where companionship blossoms. The sanctuary at Assisi Heights, with its quiet corners and open doors, became a place not only of prayer but of practical care and shared humanity. The ritual of gathering—prayers, sermons, quiet reflection—was as important as any medical procedure. These spaces teach us that spiritual life is not a solo venture; it’s a communal craft, built out of shared hope, common losses, and the deliberate practice of listening to one another. In my own life, the concept of spiritual companions became a vocabulary for understanding how faith and science, medicine and mercy, can cooperate to heal the whole person. The doctors gave me tools to fight disease; the spiritual companions offered tools to cultivate resilience, meaning, and a sense of belonging in the face of uncertainty. The synergy between medical expertise and spiritual companionship is not about choosing one over the other; it’s about inviting both to work together to restore not just the body, but the spirit.   Let me share a few more reflections from that journey that might spark your own thoughts and conversations: The sacred is sometimes found in ordinary places. The sanctuary of Assisi Heights, the sunlit road on Maui, the quiet moments before medical news lands—these are not separate realms. They are all part of one human journey, where the sacred reveals itself not through grand miracles alone, but through the everyday acts of listening, praying, showing up, and saying, “I’m here with you.” Faith and science can complement, not compete with, each other. My kidney cancer episode taught me that medical science saved my life, and spiritual companionship sustained my life. It is not a competition to choose one over the other; it is a recognition that healing is a tapestry woven from multiple threads. We each have the potential to be a spiritual companion. The sisters showed me the extraordinary impact of small, consistent acts of care. You don’t have to be an expert to be a presence that helps another navigate life’s highway. Sometimes, a listening ear is all that is required to move someone from fear to faith, from isolation to connection. Gratitude is a discipline of attention. Practicing gratitude does not erase suffering, but it reframes it in a way that makes room for hope. Gratitude helps us see the people who appear at the right moment with the exact kind of support we need. Healing is not merely the absence of illness. It is a fuller sense of well-being—body, mind, and spirit—enabled by relationships that nourish life. Spiritual companionship is a robust pathway toward that fullness, a recognition that we are not meant to travel alone.   If you’re ready to begin your own practice of seeking or becoming a spiritual companion, here are some reliable resources you can explore to deepen your understanding and find practical steps: Mayo Clinic: Spiritual care and patient support resources
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/spiritual-care
This resource emphasizes the integration of spiritual well-being with medical care, offering guidance on how clinicians and spiritual care providers work together to support patients. Spiritual direction and care resources
https://www.sdi.org/
The Association for Spiritual Directors in the United States (and similar organizations in other countries) connect you with trained spiritual directors who can accompany you on your journey. Interfaith and ecumenical resources
https://www.interfaith.org/
A gateway to understanding how different faith traditions approach healing, compassion, and companionship. Community care and caregiving networks
https://www.caregiving.org/
A hub for caregivers, volunteers, and spiritual allies who offer practical support, resources, and connection. Mindfulness and reflective practice guides
https://www.mindful.org/
Mindfulness resources can be a bridge to spiritual companionship, helping you cultivate presence, listening, and compassion. Local faith and spiritual centers
A quick search for your city or region will reveal churches, mosques, temples, meditation centers, and faith-based community organizations that offer companionship programs, prayer groups, and volunteer opportunities. Books and personal narratives on spiritual companionship
Reading can be a powerful door to understanding. Look for memoirs and sermons that explore the relationship between illness, faith, and community. Local libraries or book retailers’ online catalogs can help you discover meaningful titles. 

  Prayer

God of boundless mercy and guiding light, I come before You with an open heart and an eager spirit. If it be Your will, send a spiritual companion into my life to walk beside me on the road of faith, hope, and love. Let this companionship draw me deeper into wisdom, patience, and compassion; let it sharpen my listening, steady my pace, and lift my courage when the way grows weary. I also ask that You use me as a vessel of Your grace for another. If there are souls traveling in darkness or doubt, grant me the clarity to see them, the gentleness to sit with them, and the courage to offer a steady presence. May words spoken in truth be balanced by the quiet witness of a listening heart; may actions rooted in humility become signs of Your care.  Amen.