By DEB PIROCH
Now, as countries across the globe are being visited by COVID-19, and many in the United States are quarantined with no access to either family, friend, or priest, we would do well to remember St. Camillus and the order he founded. Camillians, ministers to the sick, wear black robes emblazoned with a red cross — some say dramatically to “frighten the Devil,” but rather for the obvious reason of being ministers of Christ. This was the first “red cross” order, founded long before today’s non-religious Red Cross organization began. First, to St. Camillus.
Our Italian boy was born in Bucchianico, Abruzzo, in 1550, son of an officer and a mother well past the usual age of childbearing (some say she was 60!). She was pious and, before giving birth, dreamt she was giving birth to a child with a cross on his chest, followed by others. The dream was really a vision of what would one day come to pass.
She died before Camillus was grown, but he would become a soldier like his father before him, and go on to fight for Venice, then Naples, sometimes against the Turks. It was during these years of soldiering that he developed an unfortunate taste for gambling. That habit would be both his economic ruin and, in an odd way, lead him to salvation.
His time as a soldier also led to the development of a foot wound or scratch which worsened. As a consequence, he was admitted to a hospital for incurables in Rome, due to abscesses and pain that developed. Yet after nine months, his gambling was apparently so extreme, the hospital even evicted him!
Somehow, he returned to soldiering briefly again, but this ailment would never leave him; he would live with its pain and festering the rest of his life. But God would bring good out of this evil. He used this illness to transform Camillus in a way no one except perhaps his mother could have foreseen on Earth.
Brought to total penury, Camillus eventually gambled away every cent. Yet something in Camillus caused him to turn to the Capuchins for mercy. In a fit of remorse, Butler’s Lives states he had once vowed to join the Franciscans. Perhaps the Capuchins were closer by. While he truly repented, and even developed a vocation, his health meant the Capuchins absolved him but could not accept him into the order.
Returning to the same hospital for the incurables where he had himself been treated, he determined to serve the sick there at San Giacomo. The nurses who served were a far cry from zealous or charitable and it pained him greatly to see how the sick suffered greatly.
Hospitals or their origins began with Christians as early as the second century after Christ. Not until the end of the fifteenth century did anything approaching larger hospitals exist in Europe. Needless to say, they all owed their existence to religious institutions, such as monasteries. Yet so little was known about medicine, one wonders what relief they brought — shelter from the elements, bathing of their wounds, basic treatments. Medical knowledge was very primitive: There were no cures for the plague, tuberculosis, syphilis, or any number of then fatal diseases.
The origins of visiting and caring for the sick are in the corporal works of mercy, mentioned by Christ in the Bible and practiced by religious and laypersons.
As his faith grew, Camillus felt our Lord asking him to form a lay group to minister to the sick as he was doing already on an individual basis. He met with difficulties, including from the local bishop, and it upset him to see the suffering he so wished to address. He developed a late vocation to the priesthood and no less than St. Philip Neri became his confessor.
One night, praying before the crucifix, Camillus heard our Lord say, “Why are you troubled? This is my work, not yours. Persevere.”
Camillus was ordained in 1584 on Pentecost by Thomas Goldwell, the Catholic bishop of St. Asaph, Wales, and the last of those who refused to bow to the English Reformation.
Now a priest, Fr. Camillus re-founded his order, today known as the Camillians. Its charism was simply this: to care for all, no matter the risk, including those afflicted with the plague or any disease, without regard of self. He underwent privations in addition to his injury, sleeping little, wearing a hair shirt, and he was devoted to praying before the crucifix. Within two years the order was already giving martyrs to God. Over 40 Camillians would offer up their lives during his lifetime to caring for the dying.
Camillians served wherever they were needed, from hospitals to battlefields. Pope Gregory XIV granted official recognition to the order in 1591, the recognition being confirmed again the following year by Pope Clement VIII. Camillians take not three but four vows: poverty, chastity, obedience, and service to the corporal needs of the sick. In every patient St. Camillus and his followers saw the face of Christ. St. Philip Neri testified that in serving the sick, he witnessed angels witnessing to the ministrations of Camillus.
Today many feel great distress at being forbidden to be with their dying loved ones during the pandemic. Even more grievous is the thought that these loved ones may be denied the Last Rites of the Church, which we know bring priceless blessings.
Recall that St. Camillus was ill himself most of his life; yet he ministered despite great pain and disease in his leg. It is said that though he was sometimes unable to even walk, he would drag himself from one sickbed to the next during sleepless nights, to see how he might minister to the sick and lighten their burden.
At a time when death was all too frequent, St. Camillus was responsible for the foundation of 15 houses of his brothers to minister to the sick and eight hospitals just during his lifetime. After his death, his order multiplied enormously and is now in numerous countries. Dying a holy death at the age of 60 in 1614, he is buried at the Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Rome. One may visit him there, and also see a relic of his heart, and the crucifix that it is said miraculously spoke to him. His feast day is on July 14.
A great many miracles have been attributed to St. Camillus, who was canonized in 1746. His first biography was published in 1615, a year after his death, and in 1851 Fr. Faber of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri translated his life into English. This account gives testimony to some of the many miracles granted to the sick for whom this great saint interceded.
St. Camillus, pray for our sick and dying!
(N.B. The author lives in the Diocese of Erie. Here three priests minister to COVID cases, including the chancellor and a 75-year-old part-time chaplain. St. Camillus would no doubt approve.)
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