Here’s my post for the Evangelium Institute blog on the Memorial of St. Camilus de Lellis.

On July 18 we celebrate the Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis, patron of the sick, of nurses, of military medics, and a hopeful story of someone who battled an addiction to gambling.

Born in 1550 in Italy, he grew up to be six-and-a-half feet tall, a giant by local standards. At seventeen, he left his hometown to join the military. Almost right away, he contracted a painful disease in one leg that would plague him the rest of his life. It was also while soldiering that he picked up the habit of gambling. In 1574, while stationed in Naples, and after many ups and downs, he lost everything he owned: his money, his military gear, his very shirt. He had hit rock bottom.

Click here for the rest.