(Saint) Camillus De Lellis: The Hospital Saint

172 pages. Imprimatur. Large Print Edition. PREFACE

A MAN of letters, whose somewhat recent conversion to the Faith and too early death are among the Church’s gains and losses, has left in the Church’s literature a veritable treasure-trove for those who are stumbling painfully along the weary but alluring way his feet trod so perseveringly.

It is a record of many years of soul-longing, satisfied at last with the most complete and utter satisfaction that this life affords. The pages of the little book fairly glow with the fervor and earnestness of the writer giving vent to the emotions that fill his soul, as, one by one, the glorious doctrines of Christ’s Church are unfolded to him and generously accepted.

There is no quibbling over this or that dogma; none was difficult to him. His the ever ready “Credo!” . . . “Yet more, O Lord! Yet more!”

In a most beautiful paraphrase of Our Lady’s Litany he manifests a heartwhole appreciation of Catholic devotion to the Queen of Heaven, to whom he appeals in behalf of those still outside the blessed portals. “Mirror of Justice!” he cries. “Seat of Wisdom! Cause of our Joy! If but they all might know thee and love thee as we love thee!” And again, “Help of Christians, aid us so to live that we may enlighten them by our example.”

Thus on through the roll of Our Lady’s titles he makes his intercessory way. And having paid his tribute to the Queen of saints, he turns to the saints themselves to proclaim his soul’s
surrender to their everlasting claims upon his reverence and love and imitation.

“O saints of God! You teach us by your example what we may strive to do; you prove to us by your victory that to strive in your spirit is to triumph in your faith. How can any one refuse to know you, and knowing you refuse to love you? O everlasting example of the infinite beauty of holiness, of the unconquerable power of love, and of the unfading luster of charity and humility and innocence! O intercede for us!”

Where shall we find among our own, those born in the household of the Faith, fervor like this, appreciation like this? Alas, we are too prone to regard the devotions which the bounty of the Church provides as our own merited inheritance; and to use them, if at all, far too sparingly.

How many children of the Church invoke the saints as often or as earnestly as they should? How many read their lives, much less imitate them? “Who,” cry the foolish votaries of the world, “who wishes to read the lives of the saints, when the world is teeming with far more interesting and far more comfortable reading about the lives of sinners? Alluring novels, while-away-time magazines, even the daily papers filled with tales about real people, help to keep the mind pleasantly enough occupied. Why disturb its equanimity with the intrusive thoughts that will follow the reading of books about medieval saints — gloomy, kill-joy ascetics, of the sort that lived six or seven centuries ago, deluding themselves with the idea that ‘to serve God is to reign’ and willing to barter all the certain joys of this life for the very uncertain joys of another?”

Ah, foolish ones! That other was promised only to those who renounce all, and follow in the footsteps of One who taught such unpleasant lessons as self-denial, mortification, meek-
ness, patience, and the triumph of the spirit over the flesh.