Posted on 07/15/2002 5:46:20 PM PDT by Lady In Blue
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Patron Saint of: hospitals, nurses, sick
Camillus' 65 year old mother had a dream that a yet unborn son of hers would wear a red cross on his chest, leading many others wearing that same emblem. She knew in her heart that this was a sign from God and did everything in her power and influence to facilitate God's wishes. She even went so far as to give birth to Camillus in a stable, in an effort to receive favors from the Holy Family. Despite this most auspicious start in life, Camillus led the life of a rebellious teenager, falling into the ways of street gangs of the time. It is reported that, as a young man, Camillus was quite the physical specimen, towering above all others - a trait that served him well in his not so gentile surroundings. At the age of 19, he joined the army to fight against the Turks under the military command of his father. In battle, Camillus injured his leg. This injury never properly healed, leaving an open wound that would plague him the rest of his life. He made trips back and forth from the hospital in Rome and the army, but as the cures were only short-lived, he was discharged from the army. Completely broke due to a gambling habit he acquired in the army, Camillus resorted to begging in the streets. One day, a member of the Cathedral of Monfredonia saw Camillus outside the cathedral's gates and he immediately took pity on Camillus, giving him a job as an assistant to a mason. While in that capacity repairing a monastery, Camillus met the Capuchin Fathers. It was the influence of these man that resulted in his conversion and repentance. Camillus later joined that same monastery; however, due to the recurring problems with his ulcerated leg, Camillus was forced to take leaves of absence and was finally dismissed. Camillus returned home. He was never cured. He devoted the rest of his life to helping the sick and was ordained in 1584. During his final years, Camillus suffered from many other painful ailments, including a rupture, renal colic and stomach cramps. The origin of the Red Cross symbol we are so familiar with today is the symbol in his mother's dreams. It became the symbol for the Order of Ministers of the Sick which was founded by Saint Camillus in 1586.
The Catholic Encyclopedia
Fascinating story. I wish we could say the current Red Cross is as stellar and holy as when it was founded.
St. Camillus de Lellis was born at Bocchianico, Italy. He fought for the Venetians against the Turks, was addicted to gambling, and by 1574 was penniless in Naples. He became a Capuchin novice, but was unable to be professed because of a diseased leg he contracted while fighting the Turks. He devoted himself to caring for the sick, and became director of St. Giacomo Hospital in Rome. He received permission from his confessor (St. Philip Neri) to be ordained and decided, with two companions, to found his own congregation, the Ministers of the Sick (the Camellians), dedicated to the care of the sick. They ministered to the sick of Holy Ghost Hospital in Rome, enlarged their facilities in 1585, founded a new house in Naples in 1588, and attended the plague-stricken aboard ships in Rome's harbor and in Rome. In 1591, the Congregation was made into an order to serve the sick by Pope Gregory XIV, and in 1591 and 1605, Camillus sent members of his order to minister to wounded troops in Hungary and Croatia, the first field medical unit. Gravely ill for many years, he resigned as superior of the Order in 1607 and died in Rome on July 14, the year after he attended a General Chapter there. He was canonized in 1746, was declared patron of the sick, with St. John of God, by Pope Leo XIII, and patron of nurses and nursing groups by Pope Pius XI. His feast day is July 14th. ©1997-2000 Catholic Online. All Rights Reserved. |
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**The origin of the Red Cross symbol we are so familiar with today is the symbol in his mother’s dreams. It became the symbol for the Order of Ministers of the Sick which was founded by Saint Camillus in 1586.**
(Don’t tell anyone!)
Saint Camillus de Lellis, Priest
Optional Memorial
July 18th
(in the United States this memorial is transferred from July 14th)
unknown artist
(1550-1614). Born of a noble family of Chieti in Italy, Camillus was a young soldier of fortune and had become penniless because of an addiction to gambling when he decided to consecrate his life to the service of the sick. He improved the treatment and care of hospital patients, and founded the order of Ministers of the sick (now known as the Camellians).
Source: Daily Roman Missal, Edited by Rev. James Socías, Midwest Theological Forum, Chicago, Illinois ©2003
Collect:
Father,
you gave St. Camillus a special love for the sick.
Through his prayers inspire us with your grace,
so that by serving you in our brothers and sisters
we may come safely to you at the end of our lives.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
First Reading: 1 John 3:14-18
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if any one has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.
Gospel Reading: John 15:9-17
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. This I command you, to love one another.
St. Camillus de Lellis (1550-1614)
Born in 1550 at Bocchiancio in the Abruzzi, he was the son of a soldier and grew to be a hot-tempered giant--he once threatened to throw a blasphemer out of a coach in which they were travelling--over six feet six inches tall and broad in proportion, with piercing black eyes. At the age of seventeen he enlisted, together with his father now aged seventy-six, in the Venetian army; but it was not long before his father died, and Camillus was reduced to destitution by his persistent craze for gambling. Although some Capuchins at Mangredonia took pity on him, he did not see his life for what it was until 1575, when he decided to enter the hospital of San Giacomo in Rome.
Henceforth he devoted the rest of his life to the care of the sick in conditions which it is almost impossible to imagine: patients were left to rot in their own filth, they were hurried off to the mortuary before they were dead and were even beaten by their attendants. Camillus was determined to found an order, whose members would bind themselves to help the sick, the plague-ridden and the dying; so he became a priest and, after his ordination, founded the ministers of the sick, or Camillans. For most of his life he was crippled by a diseased leg which required constant dressing, b a rupture, and by feet so callused that he had to walk with a stick; yet he continued the full duties of a priest with the regular visiting and care of the sick, even to the extent of denying himself more than three or four hours sleep nightly.
By the time he retired from the generalship of his Order in 1607, there were three hundred members, fifteen houses and eight hospitals. At least 170 members had died in the exercise of their vocation, and the first 'field ambulances' to serve troops in the field had also been established. Camillus has sometimes been called the Red Cross saint, because his order wear a black habit with a red cross on the right of the breast, and he is the patron of the sick and of all nurses.
Copyright � 2000 Catholic Information Network (CIN)
Courtesy of Catholic Information Network (CIN)
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