St. Camillus de Lellis

St. Camillus de Lellis was born on 25 May 1550 at Bucchianico in the Abruzzi region of Italy. Growing to an unusually tall and hot-tempered young man, he became a soldier and a compulsive gambler who fell into poverty, and a stubborn wound in his leg troubled him for the rest of his life. A conversion in 1575 turned him wholly to God, and though repeatedly refused entry to religious life because of his ailment, he found his vocation in the care of the sick.

Ordained a priest with the help of St. Philip Neri, his confessor, he was appalled by the neglect and cruelty the sick then suffered in hospitals, and in 1586 he founded the Order of Clerics Regular, Ministers to the Sick, the Camillians, whose members wore a red cross on their habits and vowed to serve the sick even at the risk of their lives, tending the plague-stricken and the dying with tender devotion. He pioneered reforms in hospital care and hygiene. He died in Rome on 14 July 1614 and is a patron of the sick, of nurses, and of hospitals.