Day 1: The Servite Conversion

The first day of the Saint Peregrine Novena begins where the saint's own life as a man of God began: with his conversion in the streets of Forlì, when the gentleness of Saint Philip Benizi turned the political activist into a future Servite friar. The novena begins with the same disposition: we come to Saint Peregrine asking the grace of conversion proper to our own moment of suffering, and the grace of healing if it is according to the Lord's will.

Today's invocation

O great Saint Peregrine, you have been called the Mighty, the Wonder-Worker, because of the numerous miracles that you have obtained from God for those who have had recourse to you. For so many years you bore in your own body the wound of suffering, and ultimately you were rewarded by miraculous healing. Obtain for me, by your intercession, the grace I now place before you (state your petition), if it be the will of God. Amen.

Today's meditation

Peregrine was twenty-two years old in 1283 when Saint Philip Benizi, the prior general of the Order of the Servants of Mary (the Servites), came to Forlì on a peace mission. The city was under interdict (a canonical penalty by which the public celebration of the sacraments was suspended) for its open opposition to the Holy See. Saint Philip preached in the public square, calling the people of Forlì to reconcile themselves with the Catholic Church.

The young Peregrine, part of the anti-papal faction, attended the preaching not to listen but to disrupt. At a particular moment, he struck Saint Philip across the face. The hagiographical sources record that Saint Philip, in the literal fulfillment of the Lord's words "if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matthew 5:39), turned and offered the other cheek to Peregrine. Peregrine, struck by the gesture more deeply than any sermon could have struck him, fell to his knees and asked Saint Philip's forgiveness. The conversion that followed was complete. Peregrine returned to the practice of the faith, made his peace with the Holy See, and within a few years had entered the Servite Order in Siena.

The Catholic spiritual tradition has long observed that the most decisive conversions are often the work of small gestures of gentleness rather than of elaborate arguments. The young Peregrine had heard many sermons in his youth; what changed his life was a slap returned with a turning of the cheek.

Today's intention

Bring to Saint Peregrine today the principal intention of your novena. Be specific. Saint Peregrine, who was converted by Saint Philip's gentleness, intercede for me. I bring to you today the matter on which I am asking your intercession.

If you are praying this novena for a serious illness (your own or another's), name the patient explicitly, the form of the illness, the current state of medical treatment, and the particular outcome you are asking. Saint Peregrine's intercession is, by long Catholic experience, more efficacious for specific petitions than for vague ones.

Reflection

The Catholic devotion to Saint Peregrine begins with the recognition that he himself underwent a moment of personal transformation. He was not born a saint; he was made a saint by the encounter with a moment of grace and by the long years of fidelity that followed. The Catholic faithful who pray to him for healing are not asking a distant figure for a favor; they are asking a man who knew personal sin, conversion, religious formation, long fidelity, severe illness, and miraculous cure. He has walked the road we are walking.

This is why his intercession is particularly powerful for those in serious illness. He knows what we are going through. The night he spent in the chapel before the Crucifix on the eve of his amputation is the same night many of us spend in the hospital, in our own beds, in the waiting room of the oncologist. He understands. He intercedes.

Closing prayers

Conclude with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Saint Peregrine, pray for us. Saint Peregrine, intercede for the patient I bring to you today.