St. Peregrine Laziosi: Life, Feast Day, and Healing

You have probably heard his name in a hospital room. Someone mentions St. Peregrine, and it is nearly always because someone they love has cancer. The name comes up quietly, the way people share the few things they have left when the news is bad.

He was a real man, and the details of his life are stranger and more human than most people expect. He was born on 1 November 1260 in Forli, a town in northern Italy that was then part of the Papal States. He died there on 1 May 1345 at the age of eighty-four. In between he was a Servite friar, and today he is the patron saint of people with cancer, AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses.

One thing should be said plainly, because it matters. No saint cures anyone. God is the one who heals. Catholics ask the saints to pray for them the way you would ask a friend to pray, and they keep going to the doctor, keep taking the medicine, keep showing up for treatment.

The Only Son of a Divided House

Peregrine was the only son of an affluent family, and the family had taken a side. They supported the faction in Forli that stood against the pope. The city was split, and the division ran through families, through friendships, through the streets. He grew up inside that quarrel and belonged to it.

By the time he was eighteen, the city was under interdict, which meant the churches were closed to public worship and the sacraments were largely withheld. It was a punishment laid on the whole city for its politics, and it fell on everyone, including people who had nothing to do with the fight. Into that closed and angry place came a friar sent to reconcile the two sides.

The Man He Struck

The friar was Philip Benizi, Prior General of the Servite order. He came to Forli in 1283 to try to bring the divided city back together. While he was preaching, a crowd heckled him. The heckling turned into something worse. Peregrine, eighteen years old, struck him and helped drive him out of the city.

What happened next is the turn of the whole story. Peregrine repented. He went to Philip Benizi and asked his forgiveness, and Benizi received him kindly. There is no record of a scolding, no account of a penance imposed in anger. The older friar simply forgave him. After that, Peregrine began to pray and to do good works. A young man who had used his hands to drive a preacher out of town started using them for something else.

Siena, and Then Home

A few years later he joined the Servites in Siena and was ordained a priest. The order could have sent him anywhere. It sent him home, back to Forli, the city where he had made his worst scene as a young man.

He founded a new Servite house there. The house is the one that still stands in the town, and the church attached to it is where his body lies today. He spent the rest of his long life in that place, and he became known as a preacher. He was also known for his care of the sick and the poor, which in a town of that size meant knowing people by name, visiting them, and doing the unglamorous work of it.

The Angel of Good Counsel

The people of Forli gave him a name: the Angel of Good Counsel. That name came from the preaching and from the way he dealt with people who came to him with their troubles. It also came from the care he gave to the sick and the poor, which was not occasional charity but a daily habit.

Tradition says he multiplied grain and wine during a severe shortage, so that there was food when there should not have been. His penances were unusual. One of them was to stand whenever it was not necessary to sit. He did this for years, through long services and long days, and when he grew tired he would rest against a choir stall rather than take a seat. It is a small detail, but it tells you something about the man. He was not dramatic. He just kept standing.

The Leg, and the Night Before

At about the age of sixty he developed an infection in his right leg. The physicians of the time called it cancer. It grew worse, and eventually the physician decided the leg had to come off. Amputation in the fourteenth century was not a surgery with anaesthetic and antibiotics. It was a last resort, and everyone involved knew what it meant.

The night before the operation, Peregrine prayed before a fresco of the crucifixion in the chapter room of the friary. He fell into a deep sleep, and in that sleep he seemed to see Jesus come down from the cross and touch his leg. The next morning the doctor came and found no sign of the cancer. The operation was not needed.

It is worth being careful here. The Church has never taught that this means every sick person who prays will be cured. It means that this happened to this man, and the Church remembers it. If you are reading this because someone you love is sick, you can hold the story and still be honest with God about how frightened you are.

His Feast Day and the Road to Canonization

He died of a fever on 1 May 1345, at the age of eighty-four. Many sick people who came to his death were said to be healed through his intercession. His feast day is 1 May, the day he died.

The formal recognition took centuries. He was beatified on 15 April 1609 by Pope Paul V, and canonized on 27 December 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII. His body is in the Servite church in Forli, the Basilica of Saint Pellegrino Laziosi.

How He Is Shown, and Where People Go

In art he is shown with one leg covered in a cancerous sore, and with a staff. The sore is the wound he was healed of. The staff is what a man of his age would have leaned on as he walked. If you want to understand the pictures, see what the symbols of the saints mean.

People still travel to him. The National Shrine of Saint Peregrine is at Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica in Chicago, run by the Servite friars. There is a St Peregrine shrine at The Grotto in Portland, Oregon. There is a shrine with perpetual adoration at Christ the King Catholic Church in Mesa, Arizona. In the Philippines, a parish and shrine in Muntinlupa keeps a relic of one of his ribs. If your illness is not cancer, you can also look through saints for particular illnesses and the full list of healing saints.

When people ask him to pray, they often do it in a set way. Here is how to pray a novena. And if you are praying to St. Peregrine for someone with cancer, you are doing what generations of Catholics have done before you. For a wider view, there is also a good summary of Catholic saints for healing.

A Prayer to St. Peregrine

St. Peregrine, you were sick and frightened and you prayed, and God answered you. I come to you now for someone I love who is sick, and for myself, because I am frightened too. Ask God to steady the hands of the doctors and nurses. Ask him to ease the pain and the fear, and to give strength for the next test and the next treatment. Ask him for healing if that is his will, and for peace if it is not. Stay close to us. We will keep praying, and we will keep going to the doctor. Amen.

Praying this for nine days in a row makes a novena.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was St. Peregrine Laziosi?

He was born in Forli in northern Italy on 1 November 1260, the only son of a wealthy family. As a young man he struck the Servite friar Philip Benizi, repented, and later joined the Servites in Siena. He was ordained a priest, founded a Servite house in Forli, and died there on 1 May 1345.

When is St. Peregrine's feast day?

His feast day is 1 May, the day he died in 1345. He was beatified on 15 April 1609 by Pope Paul V and canonized on 27 December 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII. Many parishes that keep a shrine to him hold a Mass or a healing service on or near that date.

What is St. Peregrine the patron saint of?

He is the patron saint of people with cancer, AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses. The connection comes from the infection in his right leg, which the physicians of his time called cancer and which was healed after he prayed. People also ask his prayers for caregivers and for families walking through a serious diagnosis.

Why is St. Peregrine shown with a sore on his leg?

The sore on his right leg is the cancer he lived with at about the age of sixty. His doctor had decided to amputate. The night before the operation, Peregrine prayed before a fresco of the crucifixion and seemed to see Jesus come down and touch his leg. The next morning the surgeon found nothing.

Can St. Peregrine cure cancer?

No. No saint cures anyone. God is the one who heals, and the saints pray for us. Catholics ask St. Peregrine to intercede while they continue medical treatment, keep appointments, and follow their doctors' advice. Prayer and medicine are not in competition. Asking for his prayers does not mean putting down the treatment plan.