By RAY CAVANAUGH
Standing for long periods of time as a penance, St. Peregrine Laziosi (b. 1265) developed a severe infection in his right leg. However, the night before his scheduled amputation, he had a vision of Jesus coming down from the cross to touch his leg, and proceeded to find his leg cured forever.
Peregrine is now revered as the patron saint of cancer patients and others facing serious health issues. His liturgical feast day is May 4 (though he is celebrated by some — such as those in his northern Italian hometown of Forli — on his May 1 date of death).
There was a time when he had been stridently opposed to the Church. In the turbulent political climate of 13th-century Italy, some communities were opposed to papal authority. When the official papal ambassador — Philip Benizi, who later became a saint in his own right — visited the city of Forli in 1283 to try to sway public opinion, he met with physical violence.
Among his attackers was Peregrine Laziosi, a young man who belonged to a prominent anti-papal family. He struck the ambassador in the face, sending him to the ground. Upon regaining his balance, the ambassador, instead of expressing any objection, simply offered forgiveness. Young Peregrine was so affected by this touch of goodwill that he soon tracked down the ambassador, not to offer further violence, but to express his regret.
From the time of his epiphany with the ambassador, Peregrine “began to scorn the vanities of the world and to pray most fervently to the Blessed Virgin, asking that she show him the way of salvation,” as told by stperegrine.org, a website connected to the National Shrine of St. Peregrine in Chicago.
Peregrine soon forsook his anti-papal activities and entered the Order of the Servants of Mary (also known as the Servites) and refocused his energy on devotion to the sick and needy. He also engaged in some remarkably strict and thorough penitence, standing for prolonged periods of time. According to some accounts, he stood for as long as thirty years in a row (and obtained what sleep he could by leaning on a wall).
In the view of James Foerster, communications director at Friar Servants of Mary in Chicago, “The statement that St. Peregrine stood for three decades is a metaphorical way of attesting to St. Peregrine’s devotion to penitence and asceticism.”
Whatever the exact number of actual years, the ever-penitent Peregrine was spending far too much time on his feet, and this practice would beget some serious medical issues. Eventually a “huge ulcerative growth appeared on Peregrine’s leg, exposing the bone and emanating the odor of gangrene,” as told by George T. Pack, MD’s 1967 article “St. Peregrine, OSM — The Patron Saint of Cancer Patients,” which appeared in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. Pack adds that Peregrine “was examined by the best physicians of his time, who unanimously pronounced the lesion to be cancerous.”
Subsequent to his ensuing miraculous cure, he resumed his charitable works, though one might assume he toned back his standing regimen. He died, around age 80, in the mid-1300s. He was beatified in 1609 and canonized in 1726. His body has remained within the Basilica of St. Peregrine in his native Forli. Depictions of Peregrine tend to portray him with a severe sore on his lower leg.
The Will Of God
Given the importance of his patronage and the urgency of the conditions under which his patronage applies, it does seem that Peregrine goes rather under-acknowledged. Foerster believes it’s because the Servite order to which Peregrine belonged has been, throughout its history, a relatively small one (there are a total of about 800 existing Servite friars located on five continents).
Aside from Chicago’s National Shrine, other U.S. shrines to Peregrine are found in Arizona, California, and Oregon. In Muntinlupa City, the Philippines, the St. Peregrine Parish, established in 1985, houses a rib belonging to the body of the saint himself. The rib remains “darkened, but well preserved” within a “precious silver reliquary” located in a small chapel visited by many a cancer patient, according to stperegrineparish.org.
The Filipino parish also has a separate Peregrine bone fragment and a black cap the saint wore during his lifetime. These artifacts were donated by the Servite order in Forli.
The Peregrine section of the Friar Servants of Mary (servite.org) website “hear[s] daily from people suffering from cancer, from those with loved ones suffering from cancer, as well as from those caring for people suffering from cancer,” says Foerster, who adds: “Numerous petitions and inquiries are received each day.”
Foerster views Peregrine “as a companion and friend to accompany someone on their personal journey through sickness and suffering, wherever that journey may lead.” Even if it leads to one’s mortality. He tells how one Servite friar, before succumbing to cancer in 2007 at age 61, learned that the “real miracle of St. Peregrine’s life was the inner transformation that came from his surrendering and conforming to the will of God.”
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