July 18 - St. Camillus

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” - John 15

St. Camillus was born in Naples in 1550. His mother died when he was very young and his father barely acknowledged his existence. He grew up with an excessive love for gambling. 

At age 17, he contracted a disease in his leg that left him with an incurable sore. He suffered from it for the rest of his life. He went to Rome to be both a patient and servant at the “Hospital for Incurables.” After nine months, he was dismissed for being too quarrelsome.

He joined the army and served as a Venetian soldier. He gambled and fought against the Turks until his regiment was disbanded in 1574.

Now he was 24, unemployed, and penniless, having gambled away everything he had. 

He accepted work at a Capuchin friary. There, a moving sermon began him on his path to conversion. From that point on, Camillus never strayed from his penitential path. He entered the Capuchins as a novitiate but was unable to be admitted because of the incurable sore on his leg. 

He went back to Rome, to the same hospital that he had been dismissed from, and cared for the sick and dying. His prudence, piety, and dedication impressed the administrators so much that they made him director of the hospital. He founded an order of lay infirmarians. 

Under the spiritual direction of St. Philip Neri, Camillus studied for the priesthood in order to better serve the spiritual needs of the sick. 

After his ordination at age 34, he left the Hospital of Incurables and founded his an order, “Fathers of a Good Death,” also known as “Servants of the Sick.” The men in his order took vows to serve prisoners, those with plague, and those dying in private homes. Camillus was particularly attentive to the dying.

Camillus and his religious went out onto plague ridden galleys, forbidden to land. Two of the religious became the first martyrs of charity in the order when they died from the plague, contracted when they were caring for the sick on ships.

Some of the religious formed the first recorded military field ambulance, going with the troops fighting in Hungary and Croatia.

Despite his own incurable leg, St. Camillus spent the rest of his life serving the spiritual needs of the dying. He has been named the patron of hospitals, nurses, and the sick.

“I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me.” - Matt 25

“Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor: 

the Lord will deliver him in the evil day.” - Psalm 40:2