Today, 12 June 2013, the Camillian family remembers the anniversary of the death of the Servant of God, Nicola d’Onofrio.

‘Nicolino’ was born in Villamagna, a village near Bucchianico, on 24 March 1943. He immediately felt the wish to dedicate his life to Christ and thus in 1955 he joined the Camillian studentate in Rome. On 7 October he took his first profession with the three vows of all Congregations (chastity, poverty and obedience) and the fourth vow solely of the Camillians, that is to say service to the sick and the suffering, ‘always, even at the risk to our life’.

At the age of twenty he began to feel the first symptoms of the grave illness that would lead to his death. In the pages of his diary, reflecting on his grave situation, he wrote: ‘I will not ask for healing, but that I may carry out to the full the will of God’.

Nicolino was a great spiritual example for everyone, he always tried to conceal his sufferings, bearing them until the last moments of his life.

In 2000, during the Jubilee Year, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Vicar of the Pope for the Diocese of Rome, opened the inquiry into the life and the virtues of this young Camillian, defining him as ‘a model of life above all for the young generations’.

As a Servant of God, he spent his short life with love for the least, for the sick and for the marginalised.

On the occasion of the forty-seventh anniversary of the pious passing over of Nicola d’Onofrio, Father Renato Salvatore, the Superior General of the Order of the Ministers of the Sick, on Saturday 15 June, at 17.00, will preside over the solemn concelebration of the Eucharist in the church of the Camillian community of Villa Sacra Famiglia in Rome.