Paper given by Giovanni Terenghi to the members of the Lay Camillian Family at S. Giuliano (Verona) on 2 April 2000. The fourth paper of the 1999/2000 programme: ‘The Spiritual Experience of Camillus de Lellis’

The Crucifix and Mercy

Following the footsteps of the spiritual experience of St. Camillus from the event of his conversion until the steady emergence of the special vocation of the Camillian charism, we can observe the constant presence of the Crucified Christ: the revelation of the call of God, the event of the experience of a love that surprised and caused upheaval with its incomprehensibility, and an energy that led Camillus and his companions to make their own lives a gift in the image of Jesus.

Let us go back to some fundamental moments of the spiritual experience of Camillus, reading them anew from the dual (but in reality single) perspective of the revealed mercy of the Crucified Christ. For the most part we will listen to the testimonies of the saint (when possible) and his companions, asking the Holy Spirit to speak to us about Jesus through the experience of these men. We will ask them to open our minds and our hearts, and to make us understand the will of God on that part of the journey which each one of us is now travelling. In particular, we will ask him to make us love the gift of mercy which he pours into us, and through the charism given to our father Camillus as well.

The Apparitions of the Crucified Christ

It is probably the case that the accounts of the two visions of the Crucified Christ that Camillus had at the beginning of his adventure are known about. As often happens in relation to the things of God, that holy inspiration in the night of the Assumed Virgin of 1582 to ‘institute a Company of pious and good men who not for gain but willingly and for love of God would serve Him with that charity and lovingness that mothers usually have for their sick children’ (Vita Manoscritta=Vms 52) was contradicted by the development of events: everything seemed to go against what Camillus had in his heart and – as he was discovering – was not the wish of his heart alone.

It was during this initial stage of uncertainty with the thronging of questions that did not meet with answers, and in difficulties and in incomprehension – at times felt by the very people who were thought to be ‘nearest’ to him: it was specifically during the darkness of this trial that Camillus began to experience being a follower of the crucified Jesus: ‘My child, if you are going to serve the Lord, be prepared for times when you will be put to the test’ (Sir 2:1).

The words spoken by the crucified Christ are known: ‘What’s wrong with you pusillanimous one? Follow this undertaking and I will help you, given that this work is mine and not yours’ (Cicatelli 1620,28).

The starting situation, I have emphasised by now on a number of occasions, is that of ‘pusillanimity’, that of the heart of a child who is too small, frail, weak and vulnerable to resist the impact of the power of the Spirit and the terrible trial of the gratuitousness of the gift.

The words of the crucifix were words that made him – according to the words of his biographer – ‘the most contented and comforted man in the world’ (Vms 55). And it also necessary that at the beginning, as we have seen, there is an experience of a great love, of an unlimited mercy that purifies and recreates so that our hearts can begin to beat again according to the heart beats of God and can continue to do so even when God seems to be hidden or to have abandoned us.

It is not my intention to enter the nature of these events, even though they had a decisive importance for Camillus and his vocation. Nor does it seem to me to be necessary to attempt – albeit in the form of a draft – to formulate proposals as to how these should be interpreted. What it seems important to emphasise is, rather, the ‘provisional’ character – at this point in the adventure of Camillus – of his experience of the cross. For Camillus, who was wandering in the darkness of a divine will that was still uncertain, the cross of Jesus was experienced at that moment as a ‘consolation, a sign of certainty in the uncertainty of the mystery of God, a testimony of the presence of He who does not forget us, in situations which proclaimed instead a distance, or at the least the silence of a heaven that did not speak’. Here Camillus is faced, if we can express the point so, with the fundamental words of the cross, the action of God who comes to man and recreates him (as we have seen). Although he communicated with a ‘heart that is still too small’ (pusillanimous), God decided for Camillus, He drew near to him in the only way that He knows: as mercy.

Almost as a commentary on the words of the crucified Christ, Camllus later wrote: ‘one can almost say that this foundation was done miraculously…I have said that this miracle was manifested in this foundation of ours and in particular in this serving of myself, a miserable sinner, ignorant, and full of many defects, and failings, and worthy of a thousand hells. But God is the master, and can do as He wishes, and it is infinitely well done. Nobody should admire himself because of such an instrument that God has worked, it being His greater glory and no other’s wonder’ (Scritti, 454 – 455).

The ‘provisional’ I said. Indeed, at this point Camillus saw the mystery of crucified love, but he was still on its threshold. He had still not entered it, or rather he had still not allowed himself to traverse it. Indeed, Camillus’ experience of the cross had already begun with the mystery of the trial that preceded the apparitions and then continued for the whole of his life in the discipleship of the crucified Christ and mercy for the sick.

Even though Camillus was a child of his time (in fact the religious climate of the Italy in which he lived was deeply marked by devotion to the passion of the Lord – ‘the cross, it has been written, held sovereign sway over it’, the emphasis that was in fact placed on the apparitions (one may think of a certain iconography, including the banner placed in the basilica of the Vatican on the occasion of his canonisation in 1747) had positive but also universal effects – its merit was to have identified in the centrality of the cross the unifying and summarising element of the entire spiritual experience of this saint.

On the other hand the partial (and not universal) aspect was above all connected with the implicit message that was after a certain fashion channelled, namely that saintliness coincided with the extraordinary, with the wonderful, with what, whatever the case, could only be reduced with difficulty to a ‘normal and ordinary’ spiritual experience.

In reality, the extraordinary character of the wonderful is not substantial as regards saintliness, which in definitive terms is union with God in the giving of oneself, as was the case with Jesus. But it is specifically the extraordinary character of love that is the essence of the ordinary in the Christian life (see the magis – the ‘more’ of the sermon on the mount).

Our task will be to see how this aspect was embodied in the experience of Camillus and above all to see how it took on the ‘maternal’ face of mercy.

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