Saint Camillus de Lellis was born in 1550. When her mother died in 1562, he grew up neglected by the family members who took him in. At the age 13, he began to accompany his father from one military camp to another. At sixteen De Lellis joined his father in the Venetian army and fought in a war against the Turks.
After a number of years of military service, he entered Rome’s San Giacomo Hospital for treatment, but was eventually turned out of the hospital because of his quarrelsome attitude. Having gambled away all his possessions, Saint Camillus de Lellis took work as a laborer at the Capuchin friary at Manfredonia. Despite his aggressive nature and excessive gambling, the guardian of the friary saw a better side to his nature, and continually tried to bring that out in him. Eventually the friar’s exhortations penetrated his heart and he had a religious conversion in 1575. He then entered the novitiate of the Capuchin friars.
He moved to Rome where he returned to San Giacomo degli Incurabili and became a caregiver at the hospital to pay for his stay. He eventually became Superintendent. He began to put things in order. In the meantime, he continued to follow a strict ascetic life, performing many penances.
He was led to invite a group of pious men to express their faith through the care of the patients at the hospital. Eventually he felt called to establish a religious community for this purpose, and that he should seek Holy Orders for this task. He founded the Order of Clerks Regular, Ministers of the Infirm, better known as Camillians, a religious order dedicated to the care of the sick.
He was ordained at the age of thirty-four on Pentecost of 1584. In 1613, he assisted in a General Chapter of the Order, after which he accompanied the new Superior General on an inspection tour of all the hospitals of the Order in Italy. In the course of that tour, he fell ill and died in Rome in 1614.
Saint Camillus de Lellis is the patron saint of the sick, hospitals, nurses and physicians. His assistance is also invoked against gambling.
