Redeemer Health’s Fr. Joe Driscoll Published In CHA’s Journal Health Progress

One of Redeemer Health’s spiritual leaders, and the author of our weekly reflection, “Everyday Redeeming Love,” was recruited to participate in a conversation published in the Summer 2025 edition of Health Progress, the journal of the Catholic Health Association. Fr. Joseph J. Driscoll, DMin, affectionately known at Redeemer Health as Fr. Joe, was one of five panelists.

Health Progress prefaced the conversation: “While there is a lot of focus on the importance of building resilience and avoiding burnout in Catholic health care settings, Health Progress wanted to share some of the ways people attend to and strengthen their spiritual lives. … We asked several people to share aspects of their prayer and spiritual practice in hope that others may find it illuminating.” 

To respond to the query, Fr. Joe shared that journaling is at the heart of his daily prayer practice, writing about 45 minutes every morning.

“The practice is rooted in the unknown,” Fr. Joe explained. “I intentionally try to do this first in my prayer, so that my unconscious, particularly, has the freedom to express the deeper conversations of the dreaming night, for example. Rooted in the unknown, the fruit is a surprise, more often than not. It is seldom dramatic but consistently revealing. Lots of emotion can, at times, stop my pen. God's word, specifically familiar scriptures, will be spoken back to me. I capitalize them when writing, as they just come.”

The Health Progress article can be found here: Portals of Prayer: Tending to the Spirit.

In one of last year’s editions of Health Progress, Fr. Joe penned, “The Eucharist, Imagined and Real,” which was recently recognized with a Catholic Media Award. Said the judges, “This piece opens up the power of the incarnation into every aspect of human life.” The article can be found here.

Fr. Joe has been part of the Redeemer Health ministry, and a theologian for the Sisters of the Redeemer, since Nov. 2019. He came to us after 14 years at Bon Secours Health System. He was also president and CEO of the National Association of Catholic Chaplains for 11 years, faculty at Harvard Medical School’s Body/Mind Institute for 18 years, and a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Palliative Medicine for four years.

Photo by Jerry Naunheim, Jr., CHA