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Cancer Support Ministry

DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU MAY BE ALONE IN FACING CANCER?

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A MINISTRY FOR THOSE AFFECTED BY CANCER is now meeting, here, at Holy Trinity Parish. This ministry provides opportunities for spiritual, emotional, and physical support for those affected by cancer at all stages including diagnosis, treatment, and post-treatment care. If you are a cancer survivor, current cancer patient, caregiver, or loved one of a cancer patient, you are invited to join others who may be searching for answers to the challenges presented by this disease.

Prayerful support is at the top of the list of needs and we have reached out to some of our Parish prayer ministries for their help.  We have begun sharing our stories and some resources we have found helpful. Our 90-minute gatherings begin with a prayer to St. Peregrine, the Patron Saint of those with Cancer, we speak of our needs in dealing with this disease and its lasting effects, and close with a meditation on how we may better come to know our Lord, Jesus Christ, through the suffering of His passion and our own suffering.

For more information, please contact Deacon Dan Haverty at dthaverty@aol.com or 916-517-6558.

PRAYER TO ST. PEREGRINE

Feast Day May 1st

St. Peregrine, whom Holy Mother Church has declared Patron of those suffering from Cancer, I confidently turn to you for help in my present sickness. I beg your kind intercession. Ask God to relieve me of this sickness, if it be his Holy Will. Plead with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Sorrows, whom you loved so tenderly and in union with whom you have suffered the pains of Cancer, that she may help me with her powerful prayers and loving consolation. 

But if it should be God’s Holy Will that I bear this sickness, obtain for me courage and strength to accept these trials from the loving hand of God with patience and resignation, because he knows what is best for the salvation of my soul. St. Peregrine, be my friend and patron. Help me to imitate you in accepting suffering, and to unite myself with Jesus Crucified and the Mother of Sorrows, as you did. I offer my pains to God with all the love of my heart, for his glory and the salvation of souls, especially my own. Amen.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY MINISTRY MEMBERS

 

Bernardi, Lucy.  “Chasing Rainbows, My Triumph Over Ovarian Cancer.”

 

Coggins, Janice M. “Ovarian Cancer?: You Can NOT Be Serious!”

 

Grey, Michelle. “Are You Listening?: A Personal Journal of an Ovarian Cancer Survivor.”

 

Heras, Magda. “Even Though I Walk: One Woman’s Journey of Prayer in the Shadow of Death, Accompanied by a Benedictine and the Book of Psalms.”

 

Hutchinson, Joyce.  “On My Way Home: A Hospice Nurses’ Journey With Terminal Cancer.”

 

Ingalls, Karen. Outshine: An Ovarian Cancer Memoir.”

 

ARTICLES USED IN OUR STUDY

 

Broom, O.M.V., Ed (2018).  “Sanctifying Suffering in Union With Christ.” The Catholic Exchange.

 

Pizzalato, Brian.  “Christ Gives Meaning to Suffering.”  Published in Catholic News Agency

 

The New York Times (2019).  “How to Make Doctors Think About Death.”

 

USCCB (2019). “Caring For Loved Ones At Life's End.”

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