5/6/2015 – Wednesday of the 5th week of Easter – John 15:1-8

      Hopefully today’s Gospel reading of the vine and the branches sounds familiar.  We are connected to Jesus and the other believers in our faith in a very special way.  I was very touched by the way that members of the Knights of Columbus went out to visit Billy Hoing this week as he is in home hospice.  Billy was always a very devoted member of the Knights, supporting all their different events and taking one of the late night shifts on one of the hours that the Knights covered for the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  Reaching out to others from our faith and the values of the Gospel is foundational to how we are connected to Jesus.

       May 1, which fell on Friday of last week, is always the day we celebrate St Joseph the Worker.  But it also the feast day of another saint we celebrate, St Peregrine.  St Peregrine 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 wealthy young man in Italy in the last part of the 13^th century, Peregrine was 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, who had been sent to St Peregrine’s home town to heal some of the divisions and conflicts that existed there.  Peregrine physically attacked Philip as he tried to speak.   The guilt St Peregrine felt from this incident brought about a gradual conversion in his life, leading him eventually to become a priest in the Servite order, dedicating himself to a life of preaching, holiness, and devotion to the poor and the sick in society.  At the age of 60, Peregrine himself came down with a very terrible cancerous legion on his leg.  The night before his leg 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. The prayers and intercessions of St Peregrine are solicited by many cancer patients and their families. 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.  The example of Peregrine still speaks to us today, just as our Gospel story of the vine and the branches speaks to us about our connection with Jesus.  Let us to try find ways to live out that connection in our lives.

5/16/2012 – St Peregrine – Wednesday of sixth week of Easter – Acts 17: 15, 22 – 18: 1

       In our first reading today, Paul is in Athens trying to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the inhabitants of that city.  In the ancient world, they prayed to a lot of different gods.  In many ways, they tried to cover all the bases, not wanting to offend any one god.  Paul mentions to them a shrine that they have dedicated “to an unknown God.”  Paul says that he is now going to preach to them about the God that they unknowingly worship, because our God, the Father of Jesus, is indeed the one true God.
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.