Fr Hermann Duncan

mong the many saints that we find throughout the Church’s history who set up religious congregations to help the sick, we find Saint Camillus De Lellis who was born on the 25 May 1550 at Bacchianico, in Abruzzo, then the Kingdom of Naples.

He lost his mother in infancy, and six years later his father, who was an officer with the Neapolitan and then the French troops in Italy.

Camillus grew to be a big man – six feet six inches tall. He enrolled himself in the army at a young age and served till 1574. He contracted a painful disease in his leg that was to afflict him for the rest of his life.

De Lellis had a violent passion for cards and gaming, and was so oblivious to the evils of gambling that he sometimes lost even basic necessities, till he was compelled to open his eyes.

To make some money, he was obliged to work at the Capuchin friary. In this time, divine mercy often visited him with strong interior calls to penance. One day he was moved so much by a speech of the guardian of the Capuchins that it made him complete his conversion.

In February, 1575, at the age of 25, while going about his business and contemplating his conversion, he fell to his knees and, striking his chest, with many tears abhored his past sinful life, crying to the Lord for mercy. From then on he continued adamantly on his path of penance.

He attempted to enter as a novitiate among the Capuchins and the Grey Friars, but could not be admitted due to his disease that was judged incurable. He soon left for Rome to enter as a patient and server of the sick in St James’ hospital for the incurables. There he grieved in seeing the immorality and slackness of hired servants in attending the sick, such that he formed a group of attendants who desired to devote themselves to caring for the sick out of a motive of charity. The administrators, having been witnesses to his charity and piety, were moved, and after some time appointed him director of the hospital. To make himself more useful in assisting the spiritual needs of the sick, he decided, with the approval of his confessor, St Philip Neri, to receive Holy Orders.

He was ordained priest on Pentecost 1584 and celebrated his first Mass on 10 June of the same year. He was nominated to serve a little chapel called our Lady’s ad miracula, and quit the direction of the hospital.

Before the end of 1584, Camillus laid the foundation of his congregation for serving the sick. He prescribed them certain short rules, and they went to the great hospital of the Holy Ghost every day, where they served the sick with so much piety, affection and diligence, that it was as though they saw Christ himself in the sick or wounded.

The habit worn by this congregation was a large red cross on their cassock which remains the symbol of the congregation today – a symbol universally recognised as a sign of charity and service. This was the original Red Cross, hundreds of years before the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement was formed.

In 1585 he started a religious congregation named Ministers of the Sick, which was approved by Pope Sixtus V on 18 March 1586. He gave them the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Rome, which they still care for to this day. In 1588 he was invited to Naples, and with twelve companions founded there a new house.

In 1591 Pope Gregory XIV elevated this congregation to a religious Order, with all the privileges of the mendicant Orders, and under one obligation of the four vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and perpetually serving the sick, even those infected with the plague. In 1594, Camillus managed to set up his congregation in Milan, where they used to take care of the Ca ‘Granda hospital. He founded religious houses in Bologna, Genoa, Florence, Ferrara, Messina, Mantua, Palermo and many other places. He had sent several of his friars to Hungary, and to all other places which in his time were afflicted with the plague.

In 1607 due to his deteriorating health, he withdrew from Congregation Superior. He assisted at the fifth general Chapter of his Order in Rome, in 1613, and after it, with the new general, visited the houses in Lombardy, giving them his last exhortations.

He died in Rome on 14 July 1614 at the age of 64. He was buried near the high altar in St Mary Magdalen church; but upon the miracles which were authentically approved, his remains were exhumed and reinterred beneath the altar. He was canonised in 1746 by Pope Benedict XIV, while Pope Leo XIII appointed him, along with St John of God, patron of the sick. In 1930, Pope Pius XI declared him the patron of nurses and nursing associations.

Let us pray for the sick, that through the intercession of St Camillus De Lellis, they may find courage in the pain they suffer due their illness.

Fr. Hermann Duncan is a Carmelite Friar at the Caremlite Priory in Balluta