Patron Saint of Cancer
St. Peregrine Laziosi, feast day May 1
The patron saint of cancer patients is St. Peregrine Laziosi, a Servite friar whose feast is May 1; tradition holds that a cancer of his leg was healed the night before an amputation. St. Agatha is invoked for breast cancer. AngelGuard puts medical care first and offers prayers to pray alongside it, never instead.
Quick facts
Why St. Peregrine Laziosi?
Peregrine was a fourteenth-century friar who developed a cancer of the leg severe enough that amputation was scheduled for the following day. The account holds that he spent the night in prayer before a crucifix and that the wound was found healed in the morning. He lived roughly another twenty years and died in his eighties.
That is the whole basis of the patronage, and it is why people reach for him at the moment of a diagnosis rather than on a calendar date.
One thing has to be said plainly on a page like this. Peregrine was healed and most people who pray to him are not, at least not in the way they asked. The Church does not read that as failure, and it certainly does not read it as insufficient faith. Nor has the Church ever proposed his intercession as an alternative to treatment. Praying and undergoing oncology at the same time is the ordinary Catholic position and there is no tension in it whatsoever.
St. Agatha is separately invoked for breast cancer, from the manner of her own martyrdom.
Who was St. Peregrine Laziosi?
Peregrine Laziosi was born in Forli about 1260 into a family opposed to the papacy, and as a young man took part in the politics of that opposition. The turning point is a public one: he struck St. Philip Benizi, who had come to preach reconciliation, and Philip offered him the other cheek. Peregrine joined the Servites not long after.
He is said to have kept a penance of standing whenever standing was possible, for years, and the sores that developed on his leg turned cancerous. Amputation was scheduled. The night before, he prayed at length before a crucifix in the chapter house and fell asleep there; he woke, in the account, to find the leg whole.
He lived another twenty years and died in 1345 at about eighty-five. He was canonised in 1726, and the patronage of cancer patients follows directly from that night rather than from anything symbolic.
Prayer to St. Peregrine Laziosi
O great St. Peregrine, you who bore in your own body the disease that afflicts so many, and who were healed by the touch of the crucified Christ: obtain for me the strength to bear what I am carrying, the wisdom to accept the care of those treating me, and, if it be the will of God, healing. And for those I love who are frightened, obtain peace. Amen.
The feast: May 1
May 1, beside the memorial of St. Joseph the Worker on the same day. Many parishes with a Servite connection offer a blessing of the sick on or near the feast, and novenas to him are prayed at any point in a diagnosis rather than only in May.
How to ask their intercession
Ask for the healing you actually want, by name, without hedging it in advance. Then add the harder half: the request for what to do if the answer is no. And keep the treatment going. If anything ever makes you feel you must choose between a doctor and a prayer, that is not the Church speaking.
Medical care first, and prayer alongside it
Before anything else on this page: keep your appointments, take the treatment your doctors recommend, and ask them every question you have. Asking St. Peregrine to pray for you is never a substitute for oncology, and the Church has never taught that it is. The Catechism says “Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them” (CCC 2288).
Scripture puts the doctor and the prayer side by side. “Honor a physician according to your need with the honors due to him, for truly the Lord has created him. For healing comes from the Most High” (Sirach 38:1–2). “The Lord created medicines out of the earth. A prudent man will not despise them” (Sirach 38:4). And, after the prayer: “Then give place to the physician, for truly the Lord has created him. Don’t let him leave you, for you need him” (Sirach 38:12).
St. Peregrine: what is history and what is tradition
What is history. A Servite friar of Forlì who died on May 1, 1345, known in his town for preaching and for his care of the sick and the poor, whose conversion began when he struck St. Philip Benizi. Pope Paul V beatified him in 1609 and Pope Benedict XIII canonised him in 1726. His body rests in the Basilica of San Pellegrino in Forlì.
What is tradition. The healing comes to us through the Servite tradition, told above. No one today can say what the illness in his leg was in modern medical terms. The Church’s judgement, in canonising him, was on the holiness of his life, not on a diagnosis, and his patronage asks for his prayers, not for a repeat of his cure.
What saint do you pray to when you have cancer?
St. Peregrine above all, because of that night in Forlì; people ask him at a diagnosis, before surgery, through chemotherapy and at the waiting for scan results. St. Agatha, the Sicilian martyr whose memorial is February 5, is invoked for breast cancer because of the manner of her martyrdom. The saint whose name you carry, and your guardian angel, are asked too, and so is St. Raphael, the patron saint of healing.
And the Church gives the sick a sacrament, not only a saint. The Anointing of the Sick “is not a sacrament for those only who are at the point of death” (CCC 1514): anyone facing a serious illness may ask a priest for it, and many receive it before major surgery or at the start of treatment. The practice goes back to the apostles: “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the presbyters of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:14).
A prayer to St. Peregrine before treatment
For the morning of surgery, a chemotherapy day, a scan or a results appointment. It asks for healing plainly, and for everything else that is needed, and leaves the answer with God.
Lord Jesus, you touched the sick and they were not afraid of you. I am afraid today. Guide the hands and the judgement of everyone who treats me. Let this treatment do its work, and if it is your will, heal me. Whatever comes, stay with me in it. St. Peregrine, who prayed through the night before your surgery, pray for me. Amen.
A prayer for someone you love who has cancer
For a husband, a wife, a parent, a child or a friend. Say their name.
Father, I bring you (name), whom I love. You know this illness better than any doctor. Give (name) strength for each day of treatment, relief from pain, and good sleep. Give the doctors wisdom, and give me the words and the patience to help. If it is your will, bring healing. St. Peregrine, pray for (name), and for all of us who love them. Amen.
For another prayer to say alongside treatment, see a prayer for those battling cancer, and for nine days with St. Peregrine, the St. Peregrine novena.
What if the healing does not come?
Most people who ask St. Peregrine’s prayers are not healed the way he was, and the Church says so plainly: “even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses” (CCC 1508). That is not a failure of faith, and no one who is still sick has prayed wrongly. St. Paul asked three times to be freed of his own affliction and was told: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
A hard diagnosis can bring despair as well as fear. If it has left you feeling there is no point going on, or thinking about ending your life, please do not carry that alone. Tell your care team, and reach out for help now.
When treatment can no longer cure, care does not stop. The Catechism calls palliative care “a special form of disinterested charity” and says “it should be encouraged” (CCC 2279). “The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit” (Psalm 34:18). The whole of Psalm 34 is a psalm for the frightened.
What Catholic medal is for cancer?
The St. Peregrine medal, bearing his image. Many patients wear one, or keep one in a pocket, through treatment. A blessed medal is a sacramental: by the Church’s prayer, sacramentals “prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it” (CCC 1670). It is not a charm, and it guarantees nothing by being worn. The Catechism warns that attributing the power of prayers or sacred signs “to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition” (CCC 2111).
The same answer holds for “the most powerful prayer for cancer”. There is no ranking. The most powerful prayer is the one you actually pray, honestly, alongside the treatment.
What to say or write to someone with cancer
People freeze, and then say nothing, which is worse than saying something simple. A few things help. Say you are sorry and that you are thinking of them. If you pray, tell them you are praying and for what: “I’m asking St. Peregrine to pray for you every morning” means more than “thoughts and prayers”. Offer one concrete thing, a meal on Thursday, a lift to treatment, and then do it. Let them talk about the illness, or about anything else.
Avoid promising healing, telling them what cured someone else, or suggesting that enough faith will fix it. That lays a burden on a sick person that the Church does not. Visiting the sick is one of the works of mercy (CCC 2447), and a card that simply says “I’m here” is part of it.
For someone in treatment now, and those beside them: a prayer for those battling cancer — to pray alongside St. Peregrine’s intercession.
Many people with cancer first meet St. Peregrine’s name at the end of Fr. Peter Rookey’s Miracle Prayer — “Lord Jesus, I come before you just as I am,” explained line by line.
Frequently Asked Questions
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