St. Camillus de Lellis (SAU 37; for Nurses) Oval Ceramic Ornament

A hard-living soldier in his youth, St. Camillus de Lellis (1550-1614) had a religious conversion in 1575. Because of an incurable leg wound he had received fighting the Turks however, he was denied admittance to the Capuchin Order three times. Having then entered a hospital for incurables in Rome, he became a gentle caregiver to the sick and dying. He was eventually promoted to hospital administrator, became a priest, and founded the Order which today bears his name, the Camillians. Here, he holds the crucifix he took everywhere with him in his left hand and a book, presumably the Rule of his Congregation, in his right; and, he wears the Order’s ‘uniform’—a black cassock and cape with a large red cross respectively on the chest and on the right shoulder. St. Camillus is patron saint of nurses, hospitals, and the sick. + Feast: July 18 (in the United States); July 14 elsewhere + Image Credit (SAU 37): Detail extracted from an antique NeoGothic goldprint with floral border of St. Camillus de Lellis, originally published in chromolithography by the Socièté de St. Augustin, Bruges, Belgium, late 19th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.