7/18/2014 – Friday of 15th week in Ordinary Time – Isaiah 38:10-12, 16

      Our psalm today actually comes from the prophet Isaiah.  In the refrain, we call out – You saved my life O Lord; I shall not die.  I can imagine the saint of the day expressing those words to God.

       Camillus de Lellis was a solider who fought for the Venetians in the later part of the 16th century.   He was discharged from the army and was left penniless and a broken person due to a gambling addiction that was spiraling out of control.  He also suffered from very ill heath due to wounds he received as a soldier.  Camillus, by necessity, started work in a hospital in order to pay off his gambling debts.  God eventually led him to the Capuchin monks, but he was unable to profess his religious vows due to problems from a diseased leg.  He ended up founding his own religious order – the Ministers of the Sick – known today as the Camellians. The Camellians are credited with having the first field medical unit when they treated Hungarian and Croatian troops in war in the early 17th century. The Camellians showed strength and courage while treating the victims of the Plague in Rome.  Camillus is the patron saint of nurses and of the sick. How he overcame adversity and problems to serve the Lord is an example to all of us. The Lord saves our lives in many ways.  He often saves us from ourselves and from the personal demons that haunt us.  Through the new life we have in the Lord, we shall not die.