How to make the Red Cross cross

Quite simple really, you only have to draw a link between the symbol of the cross and the Christian faith for Red Cross officials to go into denial mode. They have, as far as they are concerned, no link to Christianity.

I am not too sure that they make a similar claim when it comes to the Red Crescent.

In their own words they are secular, humanitarian, anything but that dreaded word: Christian!

Here is how they describe themselves:

We are a volunteer-led humanitarian organisation that helps people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are.

I believe that this denial of their Christian origins also materialises at Christmas time when Red Cross shop staff are directed not to feature cribs in their windows.

This does not square with what we, as Catholics, believe and today is the actual feastday of the originator of the Red Cross, none other than St Camillus de Lellis.

Originating from Bocchianico in Italy and born to a mother aged sixty (according to his biographer, Fr Martindale) he became a soldier and fought against the Turks. He gambled and he probably did all the other things that rough and ready soldiers did in those days but, eventually, he fell victim to a bullet from Christ. In short, he repented of his ways and began the process of becoming a Capuchin. But, whilst a soldier he had contracted a slight wound to his leg and this festered to such a degree that it remained with him for the rest of his life.

He finally established his own order, one that nursed and doctored to the needs of the sick and ailing and adopted the symbol of a Red Cross.

Today he is the patron saint, or one of them, of Doctors.

Here is his story taken from Fr Martindale’s account of his life:

“….in the hour of his bitter disillusionment, he saw two Capuchin friars, and vowed to reform himself. He broke his vow; twice more he made it and twice more he broke it. Now destitute, he entered a hospital to be tended at the price of his own service. He was dismissed because of his violent temper, his eternal quarrels, his insane love for gambling – he slept with cards under his pillow and, for a game, would desert the sick. He re-became a soldier; was not at Lepanto only because he had caught dysentery in Corfu; went through appalling campaigns against the Turks – the soldiery was reduced to such madness by starvation that they cut the very livers out of the dead and ate them. This Camillus would never do – he ate grass and horseflesh. He joined a particular regiment simply because it had a reputation for gambling; he went to defend Tunis; returned; was discharged at Naples as for ever unfit for military service (due to his leg wound). Every item he possessed he staked; he lost the lot – already, once in Naples he had staked his very shirt and lost it. But he was very tall, very strong save for his rotten leg. They offered to make him bricklayer in a Capuchin friary. He had to accept; but was so tormented lest this Franciscan environment should force him to keep his vow that he refused the very cloth the friars offered him to make a dress. He feared to commit himself to conversion….But the frightful cold of winter drove him to give in. And, in 1575, this more-than-prodigal-son, this man of wasted years and broken vows, did indeed give in.

He gave in; but not yet could he find his vocation. He tried and tried again to enter a religious order; but always the wound in his leg prevented him. His great succour was St Philip Neri, in Rome, founder of the Oratorians, that affectionate, gay-hearted, yet most understanding man, who finally turned the sick soldier’s ambitions towards serving, himself, the sick in hospitals, and so, towards the founding of that Congregation of Nursing Brothers which has perpetuated his name. In 1582 Camillus decided to group like-minded men around him, and willed that they should wear on their shoulders a Red Cross; and that in fact is the true origin of all later Red Cross movements”.

There, then you have it. That great organisation, the Red Cross, founded by a man of weak will, unsound in body but whom Our Lord was determined to make His own!

How we Catholics love our really bad sinners who become really good saints – don’t we?

He was ordained by the Bishop of a Welsh See, that of Asaph and his feastday is today  – 18^th July

 St Camillus de Lellis – Pray for addicts and those whose wills bend easily to the secular world – pray for Doctors and Nurses - Ora pro nobis!