The Healing Journey

May 2, 2025

It began with a dream. A dream about knitting prayer shawls.

“Every night, a voice in my head told me this would be a wonderful thing to do; I could even visualize the shawls and passing them out,” Maria Batick said. “The voice was persistent and told me, ‘Just do it.’”

She did, and almost 18 years later, the ministry still brings God’s love to people. At the time, Batick was at Yale New Haven Hospital, where she started an initiative to distribute “comfort shawls” to patients.

Prompted by a voice she believes was the Holy Spirit, she went to senior centers and churches throughout the region, asking them to knit shawls for the elderly, sick and dying.

“The chaplain would say a prayer before we handed them out,” she recalled. “People who were dying received them, and later their families kept them because they meant so much.”

Upon retiring in December 2015, she started the prayer shawl ministry at her parish, where they continue to distribute shawls and blankets to the infirm, baptized infants, those confronting a crisis, those who are grieving, those who have suffered a loss and anyone who requests one.

“They’re given away for many occasions,” she said. “We don’t ask. They are made with love, given away with love and received with love.”

Her colleague Joanne also gives “pocket prayer shawls” with Miraculous Medals to homebound people she visits. They have so much meaning that one man takes his with him when he receives chemotherapy. Another holds it when he’s uncomfortable or praying.

They also went to the Veterans Hospital in West Haven and asked the chaplain what they could do to help the veterans. He told them they needed red, white and blue shawls, as a reminder of the American flag and their service to their country.

Maria is convinced the Holy Spirit inspires the knitters because there have been many occasions when someone received a shawl and responded, “How did you know that was my favorite color?” Or “How did you know this color matched my room?”

“I tell the knitters, ‘You don’t know who you’re knitting for, but it will go to the right person because it is directed by God’s love,’” she said.

Batick recalls a bold orange and red prayer blanket she had on hand for over a year before giving it to an elderly man, who began to cry in appreciation. “How did you know I was a fireman?” he asked her. The colors reminded him of flames.

The Blessed Virgin is the patron of the ministry, which Batick began in her honor in appreciation for “everything she has given me.”

“These shawls are a gift from God,” she says. “The knitters are so happy to make them. Whenever I tell them stories about the happiness their shawls give people, they want to do even more. Only when they get to heaven will they understand all the joy they gave to people.”
©J Pisani

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