THE INVINCIBLE DEATH OF CHARITY

25 May – The Feast Day of Camillian ‘Martyrs’

The most effective example during periods of the plague was given specifically by the Major Superiors: by the Superior General, by the General Consultor Br. Prandi, by the Arbiter Fr. Novati, by the Secretary of the General Consulta Fr. Zazio, by the Provincials of Bologna and Milan, and by the individual Prefects of the houses. They were the first to put their lives at risk, meeting for the most part their deaths in the exercise of charity: this exemplariness generated in their religious brothers so much edification as to ignite in them a holy race in offering themselves for such heroic service.

From our houses in localities where the plague was absent, there came, from the Superiors and our religious brothers to the General Consulta, pressing requests for them to be sent to help those who had been infected, and the General Consulta, in its turn, answered that as soon as the opportunity presented itself, their requests would be met.

It is helpful to highlight the motivation and the inspiring principle of this behaviour, that is to say on the part of the religious the wish to ask for, and to obtain, a true and great grace and in the Superiors the conviction that an act of distinction and a privilege was being carried out in granting this request. This was the belief that ‘to die of the plague at the service of the plague-stricken’ was like martyrdom.

‘Be prepared’ wrote the General Consulta of Fr. Ferrante Palma, the Prefect of the novitiate of Palermo, ‘we will not fail to comfort him and give him the grace of going to serve the plague-Stricken’. Indeed, he was sent to Bologna to take the place of the Provincial Superior, Fr. Palomba, who had died of the plague.

‘There are a significant number of theologians and fathers who call martyrs not only those who are killed by heretics and infidels who hate the Catholic religion, but those saints as well who always attend to their neighbours in service to God and their health and thus embrace in an assiduous and continuous way works of charity, not only ordinary ones but also difficult and heroic ones, to the point of giving their lives. For this reason they are called martyrs. We have talked about this opinion in our work De Canonizatione and we did not in the least approve it because we believed that it was more appropriate to a panegyric than a chair of theology…If, however, we had followed the opposite judgement, we would certainly not have been able to find a more eminent model to classify amongst the martyrs to charity than the life and the virtues that honour the Blessed Camillus de Lellis’ (Pope Benedict XIV – Prospero Lambertini, at the consistory of 18 April 1745).

In the introduction to the Vita Manoscritta, compiled after 14 July 1614, the date of the death of St. Camillus, Sanzio Cicatelli offers us the following thoughts: ‘I have only touched upon a few things about those fathers or brothers who in some contagions or other worthy actions died for the health of their neighbours. So that from them our other religious who will come will hold them as examples of virtue so that they will not have anything to forgive in the flesh or in the blood when it falls to them to be used in similar circumstances. Seeing that our ancient religious did not take delight in fine words or (as the Apostle says) or beat the air with sticks, but, rather, mortified themselves to the point of losing their lives for the health of their souls. In such contagions having lost their present and momentary lives, who doubts that they did not win eternal and celestial life? It is however right that they should be written in the book of life, as well as named in this my simple history. Given that their deaths were almost another martyrdom, it being read in the roll of martyrs (as is confirmed also by Eusebius) that in Alexandria on other occasions the memory was honoured of many saints and deacons who in the company of a great number of Christians at the time of the Emperor Valerian, who governed when there was a great plague, serving readily the sick most happily, died of the pestilence honouring their charity of the religious piety of Christians with the fact of being Holy Martyrs’.

The esteem that he expresses here is for all those who died because of their service and of which he was a direct witness. In the sacrifice of martyrdom. The intention of Cicatelli is clear.

The assessment ‘almost another martyrdom’, expressed for the first time by him, and which reflects without any doubt esteem for the whole of the community, headed by the founder St. Camillus, becomes the leitmotif of those who wrote in that historical period, and applied to all those religious who died serving the plague –stricken.

On the announcement of the death of individuals solemn offices were celebrated in all the houses, with panegyric prayers in their honour. One of these, which was subsequently reworked and enlarged, was published and deserves to be remembered. Its author was Fr. Francesco Antonio Sarri, a young Neapolitan Camillian priest with a vivacious character, of strong and easy words and an exuberant imagination. The title is significant: ‘Glorious triumph of the invincible death of charity, emulator of true martyrdom. This is a speech in which, in spoken words, is demonstrated the great likeness that there is between the death of Holy Martyrs and those who die serving the plague-stricken for Christian charity’.

This speech was composed in Rome and probably read in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. Worked on, it was then printed in Naples (apud Aegidium Longum 1632).

Sarri, in order to avoid possible censorship on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities, begins with a cautionary caveat and the premiss that he does not intend ‘to determine by his authority’ whether those who ‘inflamed by charity’ and die ‘willingly’ serving the plague-stricken are crowned in heaven by the crown of martyrs like those who die for the faith. He leaves this to the judgement of the Church. He intends only to prove that their deaths ‘because of the excellence of the act are a living portrait of true martyrdom’. ‘It may also be stated’, he adds, ‘that while I discourse upon our fathers, of whom a very large array voluntarily died serving with marked mercy both the bodies and the souls of the plague-stricken, I do not want therefore to point to them as martyrs, given that this is a judgement of the Church. I only want, while I nominate them, to revere them, like an unworthy brother of theirs of the same undertaking, whom I honour as I can’.

With a scholastic method, and using biblical, patristic and classical texts, Fr. Sarri proves that martyrdom belongs not only to faith but also to the other virtues, and this on the authority of St. Thomas. In particular he pays attention the virtue of mercy and argues with dialectical subtlety and an abundance of testimonies in favour of his thesis, disputing the objections against in a vigorous way. Arguments based on reason are followed by those of advisability, of piety, and of tradition, with an unfailing rhetorical interplay of invocations, exclamations and glorifications.

The purpose of this text is to demonstrate theologically that the sacrifice of those who went to serve the plague-stricken knowing well that they were putting themselves in a situation where they themselves could die was equivalent to ‘martyrdom’. It does not have a historical purpose and because of this if we put aside references to the plague of Nola and some other occasions where there was an epidemic, it does not mention other pestilences. This is of only relative importance for us. What is of interest to us is to learn of the ‘esteem’ that the community, and not only the Camillian community, had for these ‘heroic witnesses to charity’ at that precise historical moment.

The text finishes with a finale that is a typical example of a certain Baroque oratory: ‘Overwhelmed by the high amazement and the excess weight of great wonder in contemplating your glorious triumphs (our martyrs to charity!), I will not go further in the broad sea of your praises: I say triumph! I say triumph! And I will hold back that much more willingly my tongue as I certainly hope that those celestial paranymphs, who sweetly sing those honoured words of the Most Serene Citereus: Cantate Domino canticum novum, laus eius in Ecclesia Sanctorum, while he arose triumphant over his enemies, and also of your and mine blessed Father Camillus, standard-bearer of this divine charity performed perfectly by you, will now in the heavenly Campidogolio gloriously exalt you’