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St. Camillus de Lellis

Feast 07-14 · Canonized 1746

Patron of

About

Camillus de Lellis was born in 1550 in the Kingdom of Naples. As a young man he was a soldier and a gambler, and he suffered for years from a leg wound that would not heal. While working as a laborer at a Capuchin friary, he underwent a conversion and resolved to devote his life to the service of the sick.

In 1582 he founded the Order of Clerks Regular, Ministers to the Sick, known as the Camillians, whose members wear a red cross on their habit. He insisted that the sick be cared for as if they were Christ himself, and he reformed hospital care in Rome and beyond.

Camillus died in Rome in 1614 and was canonized in 1746. He is the patron of the sick, of hospitals, and of nurses and nursing associations, together with St. John of God.

nursing, nurses, nurse, nursing care, nursing profession, healthcare, nursing patients, nursing staff, nursing homes, caregiving, nursing service

Suggested prayer

O God, who converted Camillus from a soldier's life and taught him to serve the sick as if they were Christ himself, grant through his intercession that nurses and all who care for the suffering may see Christ in every patient. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sources

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