Vigils Reading – St Camillus de Lellis

ST CAMILLUS DE LELLIS

Patron of the sick and of nurses3

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Camillus de Lellis was born in 1550 at Bocchianico in the Abruzzi. When he was seventeen he went off with his father to fight with the Venetians against the Turks. But soon he contracted a painful and repulsive disease in his leg that was to afflict him for the rest of his life. In 1571 he was admitted to the San Giacomo hospital for incurables at Rome, as a patient and servant. After nine months he was dismissed, for his quarrelsomeness among other things. He returned to active service in the Turkish war. Though Camillus habitually referred to himself as a great sinner, his worst disorder was an addiction to gambling that continually reduced him to want and shame. In the autumn of 1574 he gambled away his savings, his arms, everything down to his shirt, which was stripped off his back in the streets of Naples.

The indigence to which he had reduced himself, and the memory of a vow he had made in a fit of remorse to join the Franciscans, caused him to accept work as a laborer in the new Capuchin buildings at Manfredonia, and there a moving exhortation which the guardian of the friars gave him one day, completed his conversion. He… fell on his knees, and with tears deplored his past life, and cried to Heaven for mercy. This happened on Candlemas day in 1575, the 25th of his age. From that time he never departed from his penitential course. He entered the novitiate of the Capuchins, but could not make profession because of the disease in his leg. He therefore returned to the hospital of San Giacomo and devoted himself to the service of the sick. The administrators of the hospital witnessed his charity and ability, and later appointed him superintendent of the hospital…

To make himself more useful in spiritually assisting the sick, he proceeded, with the approval of his confessor, St. Philip Neri, to receive Holy Orders… With two companions he laid the foundations of his congregation. They went every day to the hospital of the Holy Ghost, where they served the sick with such affection and diligence that it was obvious to all who saw them that they considered Christ Himself as lying sick or wounded in His members…

Camillus was afflicted by many illnesses himself: the disease in his leg for forty-six years, a rupture for thirty-eight years, two sores in the sole of his foot, which gave him great pain. Yet under these infirmities, he would not allow anyone to wait on him, but sent all his brethren to serve others. When he was not able to stand, he would creep out of his bed, even at night, and crawl from one patient to another to see if they wanted anything.

Camillus saw the foundation of fifteen houses of his brothers and eight hospitals… He expired on July 14, 1614, being sixty-four years old. St Camillus de Lellis was canonized in 1746, and was, with St. John of God, declared patron of the sick by Pope Leo XIII, and of nurses and nursing associations by Pope Pius XI