Cancer and Serious Illness Saints Prayer Card Bundle: 15 Handmade Cards

Fifteen handmade Catholic and Orthodox prayer cards for those facing cancer or serious illness, and for the families and caregivers who walk with them. These are the saints the faithful have long turned to when a diagnosis changes everything.

Why these saints are grouped: each is traditionally invoked in cancer and grave illness, by patients, caregivers and the doctors who treat them.

This bundle includes 15 different handmade prayer cards, one of each saint listed below.

The 15 cards in this bundle

• Saint Nektarios of Aegina: Eastern Orthodox. A bishop who was slandered, removed from office and died in poverty. He is the Orthodox world’s best-known patron for those facing cancer, and his tomb on Aegina draws pilgrims who ask his prayers.
• Saint Peregrine Laziosi: Roman Catholic. The Church’s traditional patron of cancer patients. Tradition holds that on the eve of a planned leg amputation he prayed through the night and was found healed by morning.
• Saint Ezekiel Moreno: Roman Catholic. A Spanish Augustinian bishop who bore cancer himself and died of it in faith. He is a patron for those living through treatment and asking for grace to keep going.
• Saint Luke of Crimea, the Surgeon: Eastern Orthodox. A surgeon and bishop who kept operating and praying through Soviet exile. Sought by those facing surgery, chemotherapy and hard medical decisions.
• Saint Panteleimon the Great Martyr: Eastern Orthodox. A physician who healed without payment, invoking Christ. A patron of doctors, nurses and the seriously ill, called on before surgery.
• Saint Charbel Makhlouf: Maronite Catholic. A Lebanese hermit monk whose tomb became a pilgrimage site. Many healings are reported through his intercession, and he is sought when medicine has reached its limit.
• Saint Jude Thaddeus: Apostle, honored in East and West. The patron of desperate cases, invoked when a diagnosis feels hopeless.
• Saints Cosmas and Damian: Honored in East and West. Twin physician brothers and martyrs who treated the sick without charge, known as the unmercenary healers.
• Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco: Eastern Orthodox. A twentieth-century bishop known for fasting, care for orphans and many reported healings. Sought by those who want the prayers of a modern saint.
• Saint Agatha of Sicily: Roman Catholic and Orthodox. A young third-century martyr of Sicily who suffered mutilation for her faith. She is prayed to by women facing breast cancer, surgery and painful treatment.
• Saint Amphilochius of Pochaev: Eastern Orthodox. A Ukrainian monk of Pochaev Lavra who spent decades consoling the sick and the tormented. Sought when doctors run out of answers.
• Saint Abd el-Masih al-Manahry: Coptic Orthodox. A quiet government clerk of Egypt who was martyred in the early twentieth century. Many families report healings through his intercession in incurable illness.
• Saint Ephraim of Nea Makri: Greek Orthodox. A fifteenth-century hieromonk and martyr whose relics were found in 1950. Sought for serious illness, surgery and frightening diagnoses.
• Saint Basil of Ostrog: Serbian Orthodox. A seventeenth-century bishop whose incorrupt relics rest at Ostrog. Pilgrims ask his prayers in serious illness and situations with no human solution.
• Saint Nikephoros the Leper: Greek Orthodox. A twentieth-century monk who lived with Hansen’s disease for most of his life and became a consoler of the suffering. Fitting for long and difficult illness.

Each card features sacred artwork on the front and a short biography with a prayer on the back. Every card is handmade and laminated in Austin, Texas, and a prayer is said for the person who will receive it.

Prayer cards are devotional aids. They do not replace medical care, treatment or the sacraments and rites of the Church.