Praying with a friend takes about a minute and might be what carries them through the week.

A minute is less than you think and the awkwardness is shorter still. What your friend gets is not a solution; it is the knowledge that somebody else is carrying some of the weight of their week, which turns out to be most of what makes a hard stretch survivable. You will overestimate how strange it will be and underestimate how long they remember it.

Do it this week with somebody who told you something difficult. Standing up, in a corridor, thirty seconds, their name in it. Then change the subject and let them off the hook.