Novena to Saint Expedite for the Sick
Nine days of prayer for someone who is ill — one short meditation each day, then the Classic Prayer, for the sickbed, the hospital, and the long road home.
Pray one meditation a day, then the Classic Prayer, keeping their name at the center — begin today if the need is here. Praying for yourself? He hears that prayer just as gladly.
The News
Every illness has a moment it began: the phone call, the test result, the words in the doctor’s office. Name that moment plainly today, and name the fear that came with it. Then ask Saint Expedite for what he does best — speed. The right doctor found quickly. The answers without lost days. Treatment that begins while there is time. Do not let this illness have a head start.
For the One Who Is Sick
Pray today for the patient themselves — for strength in a body that feels like it has turned traitor, for courage on the mornings that start with a needle or a scan, for the dignity that hospital gowns and waiting rooms try to take away. Ask Saint Expedite to stand where the family cannot stand: inside the fear itself, holding it down.
For the Hands That Care
Doctors, nurses, surgeons, aides, technicians, the night staff whose names no one learns — healing passes through human hands. Pray for their skill, their alertness at the end of a long shift, and their kindness in the small moments. Ask Saint Expedite, who never wasted a moment, to make sure the right hands are there at the right one.
For the Family Keeping Watch
Illness conscripts the whole family: the one sleeping in the chair, the one driving back and forth with clean clothes, the one answering the phone tree, the one holding everyone else together. Pray for them today — for rest that actually restores, for strength that does not run out on day nine or day ninety, and for the grace to accept help when it is offered.
For the Long Night
Every sick person knows the hour: the ward gone quiet, the pain louder in the dark, the mind rehearsing every fear. Pray today for the nights — for sleep that comes and stays, for pain that loosens its grip, and for the one lying awake to feel accompanied rather than alone. Saint Expedite does his best work in urgent hours, and 3 a.m. is one of his.
For Healing, Step by Step
Recovery rarely arrives all at once. It comes as a better number on a chart, a first walk to the door, the first meal that stays down. Pray today with your eyes open for the small signs, and thank him for each one out loud — then ask him, boldly, for the next one, and quickly. He is not offended by urgency. He is named for it.
When the Answer Is “Not Yet”
Some days the news is flat, or worse, and the prayers feel unanswered. Pray this day anyway. Saint Expedite crushed delay under his foot — he is the patron of everyone who has ever been told to wait for a result, a bed, a treatment, a turn. Ask him to shorten what can be shortened, and to carry you through what cannot.
For the One in the Next Bed
Pray today beyond your own room: for the patient down the hall with no visitors, the family in the waiting room you have started to recognize, the stranger whose bad news you overheard. The saint who hurries to the desperate honors those who hurry to each other — and no one who has kept this watch ever forgets the others keeping it nearby.
Thanksgiving and the Promise
End as the Classic Prayer ends: with the promise. “Do this for me and I will spread your name with love and honor, so that it will be invoked again and again.” Whatever these nine days have brought — healing begun, strength given, a family held together — name it, and thank him for it. And when the recovery comes, keep the vow: leave the story on the testimonies wall, where a family just starting their own day one will find it.
The Classic Prayer
Pray this after each day’s meditation, all nine days:
Prayer to Saint Expedite for Urgent Help
Saint Expedite, you lay in rest.
I come to you and ask that this wish be granted.
(Here, clearly express what you want, and ask him to find a way to get it to you.)
Expedite now what I ask of you.
Expedite now what I want of you, this very second.
Don’t waste another day.
Grant me what I ask for.
I know your power, I know you because of your work.
I know you can help me.
Do this for me and I will spread your name with love and honor
so that it will be invoked again and again.
Expedite this wish with speed, love, honor, and goodness.
Glory to you, Saint Expedite!
Light a Candle for the One Who Is Sick
Light a free virtual candle in the shrine’s chapel on the first day of the novena, and let it burn beside the nine days of prayer — or light one on the hardest day, when the prayer needs a flame to stand with it.
You can also place their name on the shrine’s petition wall, where others will pray this intention with you.
For a single urgent moment rather than nine days, there is a prayer for someone in the hospital and a prayer before surgery — and the shrine’s general prayer for healing. More prayers are on the prayers page.