So many times, we see people searching in their lives for God. I certainly saw that on the pilgrimage trail in Spain, and I see that every time I go out to the prisons to minister to the men there. Today happens to be the saint day of St Peregrine. He has become very popular in recent years because he is the patron saint of both cancer patients and those who are suffering from AIDS and HIV. As a young man in Italy in the last part of the 14th century, Peregrine was actually a member of a group that advocated against the pope. He was in the audience heckling St Philip Benizi, the head of the Servite order of priests and brothers. Peregrine even physically struck him. Yet, the incident brought about a gradual conversion in Peregrine, in which he eventually became a priest in the Servite order, dedicating himself to a life of preaching, holiness, and devotion to the poor and the sick in society. Peregrine himself came down with a very terrible cancerous legion on his foot. The night before the foot was going to be amputated, Peregrine prayed before Jesus on the cross, and had a vision of Jesus coming down from the cross and touching his leg. The cancerous legion was cured in Peregrine, and he lived another 20 years.
When we are sick and suffering, we often pray for a physical miracle in our lives. While Peregrine had the miracle of cure from his cancer, perhaps the greater miracle in his life was the way he turned to God in a live of service and holiness, quite a change from the way he saw the Church as the enemy while he was a youth. Peregrine and Paul still speak to us today in the lives of faith that they lived. We need to bring that same zeal and courage to the way we all live out the Gospel in our lives.
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