Many reasons led the Camillian religious to donate the stature of their Founder St. Camillus to the Hospital of St. Pio. First of all, because this saint has been offered by the Church as a model for, and the patron saint of, the sick and all health-care workers. Indeed, St. Camillus himself was sick because he was afflicted by five illnesses that tormented him for the whole of his life. They did not impede him, however, from caring, animated by heroic charity, for the sick of Rome and many other cities in Italy for almost forty years. In addition, the intention was to emphasise the many aspects of nearness and likeness between St. Camillus and St. Pio.

Apart from the fact that both of them were born on 25 May, it should be remembered that when St. Pio was sent to the religious house of San Giovanni he asked to be put in cell number 5 because four centuries previously it had accommodated for one night the young Camillus who would later become a saint. After spending the whole of his existence in that very small cell, St. Pio used to repeat in sad or nostalgic tones: ‘St. Camillus slept there for just one night and became a saint, whereas after more than thirty years I am still a poor devil’. Furthermore, both of them felt great love for the Crucified Christ: St. Pio bore his stigmata and St. Camillus, opposed by a thousand obstacles when founding his Order, was encouraged by a direct intervention from Christ on the Cross who convinced him to continue. Indeed, detaching his hands from the Cross and almost caressing him, Jesus said to him: “What are you afraid of pusillanimous one! Go on! Because the work that you have begun is not yours, it is mine!”

Above all else, these two saints loved the sick: St. Camillus cared for them day and night in many hospitals in Italy with the tenderness that a mother has for her own sick child; St. Pio created a large and modern hospital that he would call the ‘Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza’ (‘House of the Relief of Suffering’). Indeed the latter dreamed of a hospital where one could above all else breathe a family atmosphere, where each patient could feel at home, cared for with tenderness and love by the doctors and nurses. He looked for health-care workers who were able to treat not only illnesses of the body but also, and above else, illnesses of the person, in order to make the burden of fear, anxiety, sadness and loneliness lighter; health-care workers who were happy and joyful to express respect and devotion for sick people, because they were animated by that faith that transfigures every sick person into the face of suffering Christ. These – and others as well – were the motivations that led the Camillian religious to donate the statue of St. Camillus, placing it, following a recommendation made by Bishop Monsignor Michele Castoro, in the chapel of the hospital to the right of the central altar.

Here, on the one hand, some of the patients could discover that saints such as St. Camillus, as well, had found in pain and illness a reason for resembling more closely the suffering Christ; on the other, health-care workers could listen again to the afflicted appeal that St. Camillus often addressed to personnel involved in providing care: “MORE HEART IN THOSE HANDS BROTHERS!” Lastly, it should be added that the whole of the liturgy, and the donation of the stature, were made more evocative and significant by the presence of the Superior General of the Order of Camillians, Father Leocir Pessini, who officiated over the celebration of the Eucharist, as well as the General Consulta and the Provincial Superiors of the Order.

Father Rosario Messina

PHOTOGALLERY