Camillus de Lellis

Camillus de Lellis was born in the Abruzzi in 1550. He grew into a soldier — he fought against the Turks — and a compulsive gambler, and he carried a wound in his leg that never fully healed. His gambling ruined him:

more obstinate than ever in his unconquerable passion, instead of amending, he staked everything he had left, his sword, his gun, his powder flask, and a cloak, forgetting that once before he had in the same city of Naples lost even his shirt, which he had been forced publicly to strip himself of in the street of St. Bartholomew, to his great shame.Sanzio Cicatelli, Life of St. Camillus of Lellis (1615), tr. F. W. Faber (1851)

Destitute, by the door of a great church at Manfredonia he was reduced to begging:

he was compelled by necessity to beg, hat in hand, before the door of the great church, in the usual way of soldiers reduced to misery. This took place precisely on the day of St. Andrew the Apostle, in the year 1574.Cicatelli, Life of St. Camillus (1615), tr. Faber (1851)

He found work carrying provisions for the Capuchins. Leaving their house at San Giovanni, the Father Guardian gave him a short, fervent exhortation to turn from sin. Riding back on 2 February 1575, it overtook him:

Suddenly he felt within him a ray of heavenly light, that made him at once fully aware of his own miserable stateCicatelli, Life of St. Camillus (1615), tr. Faber (1851)

And kneeling down on a stone, he wept inconsolably for his ill-spent life. Wretch that I am!… Oh, most unhappy! Why did I not know my Lord sooner? Why was I so deaf to His calls?… Forgive, Lord, forgive this grievous sinner, and give me time to do true penance.St. Camillus de Lellis, in Cicatelli, Life of St. Camillus (1615), tr. Faber (1851)

He tried to enter the Capuchins, but the wound in his leg would not let him stay. He went instead to serve at the hospital of San Giacomo in Rome, took St. Philip Neri as his confessor, and was ordained a priest in 1584. There, one evening, the idea of his life’s work came to him:

to found a congregation of pious men, who would not serve from the vile hope of reward, like the hired priests, but only for the love of God, and with the care of a mother for a sick child.Cicatelli, Life of St. Camillus (1615), tr. Faber (1851)

Camillus founded the Ministers of the Sick — the Camillians — who nursed the sick and dying and wore a red cross on their cassocks. He died in Rome on 14 July 1614, and was canonized in 1746; he is a patron of the sick, of nurses, and of hospitals.