EARLY HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF ST. CAMILLUS SERVANTS OF THE SICK
St. Camillius de Lellis, Founder and Patron

He skipped school. Gambled. Fought. Born to lose? Far from it. Born to serve his brothers and sisters through his later dedication to the sick and the dying. Camillus de Lellis was canonized in 1746 and later declared patron saint of the sick, nurses and of hospitals.

His life marked a turning point in medical care as we know it today. It also marked the beginning of a brotherhood that now spans the world and provides leadership in healthcare through Christian charity and love. Here is the following story of Camillus …the man…the saint…and the Order.

On May 25, 1550, Camilla Compelli de Laureto – at almost sixty years of age – gave birth to Camillus de Lellis in Bucchianico, Italy. Camillus was welcomed with great joy, also with much anxiety, for his birth was preceded by a strange dream that profoundly disturbed his mother.

She saw her son with a cross on his chest leading other men with a similar cross. “An ominous cross,” she thought, for it was the sign of those condemned to death in the gallows. Her son, she feared, would end up a leader of a gang of criminals.

The saintly woman died with that anguish in her heart when the boy was only thirteen. Camillus’ father, Giovanni de Lellis, an army captain, paid no attention to his wife’s dreams. But the wild boyhood of his son, given over to gambling and rowdy companions seems to have supported those fears. Camillus followed his father in a military career, and over the course of many years, lived recklessly with a compulsion for gambling. A leg injury resulting in numerous hospitalizations caused him a great deal of grief. 

He resigned himself to a life as a construction worker at the monastery of the Capuchins in Manfredonia, Italy, after leaving the military. The Friars gradually discovered the natural goodness of the man beneath the rough exterior, and in 1575, at the age of 25, Camillus experienced a spiritual conversion and resolved to reform his life and dedicate himself to the service of God.

Still afflicted by his leg wound, Camillus de Lellis entered St. James’ Hospital in Rome, where he would live and work among his brothers, the sick. One night he had the inspiration to assemble a group of good men willing to dedicate themselves to the sick. Later on he took up studies for the priesthood and led an army of “Servants of the Sick” against the plague and epidemics that infested Rome. Ordained at the age of 34, Camillus might be what we today sometimes refer to as a “delayed vocation”.

Camillus chose a red cross as the distinguishing badge for the members of his Order to wear upon their black cassocks, and he taught his volunteers that the hospital was a house of God, a garden where the voices of the sick were music from heaven. Once when he was discouraged, he heard the consoling words from the crucifix, “This is my work, not yours”.

After leading the movement throughout Italy, Camillus died on July 14, 1614. In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV proclaimed Camillus de Lellis blessed; in 1746 he canonized him, calling him the “Founder of a new school of charity”.

This new school saw the sick in a new light. In Camillus’ own words, “The poor and the sick are the heart of God. In serving them, we serve Jesus the Christ.” Wherever the sick person was, there God was, and it became a place of celebration. The bed of the sick became an altar, the hospital a church.

Through the remainder of the 1800’s – despite frequent epidemics that decimated the numbers of the “Servants of the Sick” – the Order grew and spread across Europe, and the rest of the world.

So typical was the expression “To serve the sick, even with danger to one’s own life” that it became the Order's fourth vow. This total dedication regardless of mortal danger became the heart of the Order’s constitution and the formula of Profession. St. Camillus’ feast day is now celebrated on July 18th in the United States.

“We want to assist the sick with the same love that a mother has for her only sick child.” – St Camillus de Lellis

St. Camillus continues to inspire because of his undeniable human nature. A “delayed” vocation, he did not hear the calling to serve the sick until well into his 20’s. And until that point, he lived a decidedly unsaintly life. Many say that his festering leg wound was God’s way of getting through to the wayward youth. The affliction opened Camillus’ eyes to the sad plight of the sick; it also delivered him to the doorstep of his future life’s work: the hospital. A “giant” in stature and charity, his spirit is very much present today in the life of each Camillian.

Back to Top

CAMILLIANS IN NORTH AMERICA

Camillian love took root in the United States in 1923. It was a few years earlier, in September of 1919, that the Superior of the German Province of the Order of St Camillus received a letter from Rev. James Dunward of the Diocese of St. Paul, Minnesota. Fr. Durward offered to donate to the Order a beautiful spot of scenic splendor called Durward’s Glen near Baraboo, Wisconsin, about 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee. With the offer came the condition that a hospital be built on the site.

The German Province sent Father Michael Mueller to America in the Fall of 1921 to look into the matter. If God’s Providence had not taken things in hand, there still might not be any Camillians in the United States. For on the voyage to America, Father Mueller met Archbishop Messmer of Milwaukee who invited Fr. Mueller to visit Milwaukee if the project in Durward’s Glen proved to be impractical.

Upon his arrival in the U.S., Fr. Mueller met with Fr. Durward and saw the “Glen”, as it was called. He was impressed with the natural beauty of the setting, but realized immediately that the location was ill-suited as a sight for a functional hospital; besides being rather remote, the area was already served by two other hospitals.

Disappointed, but still determined, Fr. Mueller returned to Milwaukee to investigate the earlier offer made by Archbishop Messmer. When the archbishop asked Fr. Mueller to fill a vacancy because of the ill health of a parish priest, he did so for a year. Soon Fr. Mueller grew restless and more determined to respond to the unique charism of the Camillians.

On February 12, 1923, Fr. Mueller initiated his plan by purchasing a house on the south side of Milwaukee on 21st Avenue with only about $800 to his name and an asking price of $8,000. It seemed impossible. But God provides.

Diocesan clergy, religious institutions, and Catholic lay people came to the rescue and Fr. Mueller was able to purchase the house for use as a monastery. He then purchased a second, adjacent house which he and other German Camillians opened as a small hospital for the old and incurable.

The early community was beset with financial problems. One day after having paid the interest and other urgent bills, the treasury was exhausted to the extent that not one penny remained, In the afternoon, when a lady brought twenty-five dollars, the proceeds of a card party, the house resounded with shouts of joy, as if they had inherited a million.

The request for rooms in the small hospital became so numerous that the community decided to build a new and more modern hospital. In 1925, they purchased some land in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa and in 1931 construction of St. Camillus Hospital began. In 1935, after the entire estate was donated to the Order, Durward’s Glen became the site of the first US novitiate. In 1946, the North American community became a separate Province.

The decades of the forties and fifties saw many changes in the North American Province. Federal and state regulations in the nursing field were becoming more strict as the government began to subsidize the care of the needy. The Order then expanded and opened houses in order to upgrade the professional training of its members. In the 1960’s, there was an expansion of the original buildings at the Glen, the building of a hospital in Whitinsville, Massachusetts, and a new community house attached to the health center in Wauwatosa. In the 1980’s several building projects on the St. Camillus Campus in Wauwatosa were begun including an assisted-living residence and San Camillo, an independent living retirement community. Through the efforts of a group of dedicated Christian lay people, Durward’s Glen was converted to a retreat and conference center for growth and healing based on physical, emotional and spiritual wellness. In the late 80’s, the Whitinsville hospital was converted into a 100+ bed nursing home. which was sold in 2002 as was Durward's Glen in 2007.

In 2005,one of our priests was sent to Sylvania, Georgia, to become a pastor of two small parishes where he would be able to help the health care need of the migrants in the area.

While much has changed over the years, much has remained the same as the Camillians continue to meet the challenges of an ever-changing, complex healthcare world where serving the sick and suffering is their passion.

Back to Top