Prayer to St. Peregrine for Healing

St. Peregrine Laziosi is the patron of those who suffer from cancer and from other grave and long illnesses, and this prayer places a loved one who is sick under his intercession. It is a prayer of petition and of trust together: it begs boldly and specifically for healing — "if it accords with God's holy will" — while asking, in the same breath, for the grace to trust God "in healing and in suffering" alike. It closes by turning to Our Lady of Sorrows, to whom Peregrine's own Order is especially devoted.

Peregrine Laziosi was born at Forlì, in Italy, about the year 1260. As a young man he took part in the anti-papal politics of his city, which lay under interdict; when the Servite priest St. Philip Benizi came to preach peace, Peregrine struck him in the face. Philip simply turned the other cheek — and that gesture of meekness converted Peregrine entirely. He gave himself to a life of penance, joined the Servite Order (the Order of Friar Servants of Mary), and was ordained a priest, returning to Forlì to serve the poor and the sick.

Tradition holds that, as a penance, he stood whenever it was not necessary to sit, for many years. In time a cancerous sore developed on his leg, and the physicians determined that it must be amputated. The night before the operation, Peregrine dragged himself before an image of Christ crucified and prayed through the night for healing. He received a vision of the Lord reaching down to touch his leg — and when he awoke, the wound was completely healed. The astonished surgeon found nothing left to cut.

Peregrine lived to about eighty-five and died at Forlì in 1345, revered for his holiness and his care of the afflicted. He was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. Because of his own miraculous cure, the Church has long invoked him for those facing cancer and incurable disease — not as a guarantee of a cure, but as a powerful friend before God, who himself knew the fear of a mortal illness and the mercy of the Lord who heals.

The prayer rests on two texts. The first is the Church’s warrant for praying over the sick at all: “Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him… And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man” (James 5:14–15) — the verse from which the Sacrament of Extreme Unction is drawn. The second is the leper’s, and it is the exact register of this prayer, which asks boldly and submits in the same breath: “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus stretching forth his hand, touched him, saying: I will, be thou made clean” (Matt. 8:2–3). Peregrine’s own cancer was healed the night before the amputation.