Day 8: Hope of Resurrection

The eighth day of the Saint Peregrine Novena turns to the deepest Catholic hope: the Resurrection. The Catholic patient with serious illness is given a particular vocation to live in this hope, and the novena's eighth day is a deliberate Catholic recovery of the eschatological perspective that frames every Catholic understanding of suffering and death.

Today's invocation

O great Saint Peregrine, you have been called the Mighty, the Wonder-Worker... (the full opening prayer)

Today's meditation

The Catholic Apostles' Creed concludes with the proclamation: "I believe in... the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting." The Catholic doctrine of the resurrection of the body holds that, at the end of time, the bodies of all the faithful will be raised from the dead and reunited with their souls in the eternal Kingdom of God. The Catholic faithful do not die into a disembodied spiritual existence; they die into the wait for the resurrection of the body, after which the whole human person (body and soul together) lives forever in the love of God.

This Catholic doctrine has practical implications for the Catholic understanding of illness. The body is not a disposable shell; the body is the constitutive part of the human person, redeemed by Christ on the Cross, sanctified at Baptism, fed by the Eucharist, anointed in serious illness, and destined for resurrection at the end of time. The Catholic patient who suffers cancer or any other illness suffers in a body that the Lord has loved and that the Lord intends to glorify in eternity.

The Catholic doctrine therefore relativizes the importance of physical healing in this life. Saint Peregrine was healed; many Catholic patients are not. But every Catholic patient (those healed and those not healed) is destined for the same final healing in the Resurrection. The Catholic who dies of cancer in this life will be raised on the last day in a glorified body that has no cancer. The healing Saint Peregrine received was a Catholic anticipation of the final healing; the healings not yet given to other Catholic patients in this life are postponed to the same final healing in the Resurrection.

Today's intention

Today, in addition to your principal intention, ask Saint Peregrine to deepen in you the Catholic hope of the Resurrection. Saint Peregrine, you were healed in this life by the touch of the Crucified Christ. The same Christ has promised to heal me in the Resurrection. Whether the healing comes in this life or in the eternal life, give me the hope that bears me through.

A traditional Catholic prayer of hope:

O Lord Jesus Christ, I believe that You are the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in You, though he die, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes in You shall never die. I believe this, Lord. Help my unbelief.

Reflection

The Catholic spiritual tradition has long observed that the patient with serious illness is, in many ways, closer to the truth of the Resurrection than the healthy Catholic. The healthy Catholic can persist in the illusion that the body is permanent, that death is far away, that the Resurrection is a remote eschatological abstraction. The Catholic patient with cancer cannot. The illness has dispelled the illusion. The patient knows that the body is not permanent; that death is closer than the healthy Catholic supposes; that the Resurrection is not an abstraction but the only real foundation of hope.

This is the Catholic gift hidden in the cross of serious illness. The patient is given a clarity that the healthy lack, and through the clarity, the patient becomes a particular Catholic witness to the wider Catholic community. The Catholic patient who lives the long course of illness in faith, who dies in the Lord, who waits for the Resurrection in patience and trust, is one of the principal Catholic witnesses to the Resurrection in our own time.

Closing prayers

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

Lord Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, I trust in You. Saint Peregrine, intercede for the gift of Catholic hope.