For the Feast of St. Camillus de Lellis

On July 18 (July 14 on the universal calendar) Holy Mother Church celebrates the feast of St. Camillus de Lellis who was born in Italy in 1550. Canonized in 1746, St. Camillus is the patron saint of hospitals, nurses, and the sick. After being wounded while serving as a soldier, St. Camillus attempted to enter the Capuchin Order; however, his leg wound would not heal, so he was refused admittance. Finally under the guidance of St. Philip Neri, St. Camillus was ordained a priest and started his Order of Clerks Regular, Ministers to the Sick, recognizable by a red cross worn on their black cassocks. St. Camillus worked diligently to care for the sick and the poor with extreme generosity and love, even seeking them out in the slums and prisons. He and his other companions risked their own lives to care for any in need when Rome was struck with epidemic and famine, holding the needs of others above their own comfort and safety.

St. Camillus often advised others with the words, “Brother, if you commit a sin and take pleasure in it, the pleasure passes but the sin remains. But if you do something virtuous even though you are tired, the tiredness passes but the virtue remains.”

While the following prayer is appropriate to pray at any time of the year, it can also be prayed as a novena in preparation for the Feast of Saint Camillus. Begin the novena on July 9 (or July 5 on the universal calendar) to end it on the eve of the Feast of St. Camillus.

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Prayer to St. Camillus de Lellis for the Sick Poor

O glorious Saint Camillus, special patron of the sick poor, thou who for forty years, with truly heroic charity, didst devote thyself to the relief of their temporal and spiritual necessities, be pleased to assist them now even more generously, since thou art blessed in heaven and they have been committed by Holy Church to thy powerful protection. Obtain for them from Almighty God the healing of all their maladies, or, at least, the spirit of Christian patience and resignation that they may sanctify them and comfort them in the hour of their passing to eternity; at the same time obtain for us the precious grace of living and dying after thine example in the practice of divine love. Amen.
***End each day by reciting one Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.

God bless!

+JMJ+