In his early life, Saint Camillus de Lellis was not looked upon as a man who would one day become a saint, let alone someone living his life serving others. Sadly, his mother died at a young age, and his father cared little for Camillus. When he was 17 years old, he developed a leg sore from which he would suffer for the entirety of his life. He became a soldier and developed a violent gambling addiction. By the age of 24 he had lost everything – including the shirt on his back.
He then was sent to San Giacomo Hospital for the Incurables, where he was first a patient and then began to care for the sick and suffering. His life began to change, and he attempted to be a Capuchin Friar but due to his leg sore, he was not admitted into the Capuchin Order. Instead, he began his life vocation tending to the sick and suffering. He was ordained a priest at the age of 34 and later began his own Order, which became to be known as the Order of the Ministers of the Sick.
The Order of the Ministers of the Sick cared for the suffering and dying, common today, but at the time transformational – tending to the whole person, listening to their woes, keeping them clean and respected. Saint Camillus spent his life serving the sick and dying, including those with the plague and men injured from war. Even as he was dying, he served those who were ill.
Saint Camillus is the patron saint of nurses, for the ill, and those with a gambling addiction. Saint Camillus, pray for us!
