Day 9: Final Entrustment

The ninth and last day of the Saint Peregrine Novena closes with the final entrustment of the patient to the Lord through Saint Peregrine's intercession. The novena ends, but the Catholic relationship with Saint Peregrine continues. Today we close with thanksgiving and with the firm Catholic disposition that whatever the Lord chooses, He chooses in love.

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 intention and act of thanksgiving

Bring to Saint Peregrine for the last time in this novena the principal intention you have been carrying through these nine days. Whatever the visible state of the matter at the close of these nine days (the patient still in treatment, the diagnosis still uncertain, the cure not yet given), give thanks for Saint Peregrine's intercession over the past nine days.

A traditional Catholic act of thanksgiving and entrustment:

Saint Peregrine, faithful Servite, who carried your cancer with patience and were healed by the touch of the Crucified Christ, I thank you for the prayers you have offered with me and for me through these nine days. I commit my intention finally to your hands. Whether the Lord chooses to give the healing in this life or to give it in the Resurrection, I trust His decision. Continue to intercede for me and for the patient I have brought to you. Carry us to the Lord through the long road of illness, and bring us at the end to the Beatific Vision in the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Reflection

The Catholic devotion to Saint Peregrine is, like every Catholic devotion to a saint, the beginning of an ongoing relationship rather than a one-time transaction. Many Catholic patients who have prayed the Saint Peregrine Novena in earlier years continue, in the years following, to invoke his intercession daily, to keep an image of the saint in the home, to wear or carry a Saint Peregrine medal, and to keep the simple prayer Saint Peregrine, pray for us as a daily devotion.

The Catholic faithful who have been healed of cancer through Saint Peregrine's intercession are encouraged to acknowledge the healing publicly: by writing to the Servite Order, by offering thanksgiving Masses at a Saint Peregrine shrine, by encouraging others to pray to him in similar circumstances. The Catholic tradition has long observed that the public acknowledgment of healings is part of the Catholic gratitude for the intercession received and is itself a means of spreading the saint's patronage to others who need it.

The Catholic faithful who have not yet been healed but continue in the long road of illness are invited to continue the relationship with Saint Peregrine through the months and years of treatment. The novena can be repeated (the traditional Catholic practice is to pray the novena three times in succession, a triduum of novenas, twenty-seven days). The novena can be prayed annually on or near his feast (1 May). The Catholic patient with serious illness has Saint Peregrine as a permanent friend in heaven; the friendship is a real Catholic gift that does not end with the close of any particular novena.

Practical follow-through

In the days and weeks following the close of this novena, consider:

• Receiving (or arranging to receive) the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick if you have not yet.
• Offering a Mass for the patient at your parish (the Catholic parish accepts Mass intentions for the sick on request, with a customary stipend).
• Wearing or giving a Saint Peregrine medal as a Catholic sacramental.
• Praying the Holy Rosary daily for the patient, particularly the Sorrowful Mysteries.
• Encouraging the patient and the family to continue the Catholic disciplines that the novena has begun.

Conclusion of the novena

For the saint himself, see Saint Peregrine Laziosi. For other novenas in the Catholic tradition, see the novenas hub. For broader theological context, see the Communion of Saints and the Catholic doctrine of the Anointing of the Sick.

Closing prayers

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

Saint Peregrine, the Mighty, the Wonder-Worker, pray for us. Lord Jesus, we trust in You.