Saint of the day July 14
Saint of the day July 14 Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, 1680 A.D. Patron of the environment and ecology. Kateri was born near the town of Auriesville, New York, in the year 1656, the daughter of a Mohawk warrior. She was four years old when her mother died of smallpox. The disease also attacked Kateri and transfigured her face. She was adopted by her two aunts and an uncle. Kateri became converted as a teenager. She was baptized at the age of twenty and incurred the great hostility of her tribe. Although she had to suffer greatly for her Faith, she remained firm in it. Kateri went to the new Christian colony of Indians in Canada. Here she lived a life dedicated to prayer, penitential practices, and care for the sick and aged. Every morning, even in bitterest winter, she stood before the chapel door until it opened at four and remained there until after the last Mass. She was devoted to the Eucharist and to Jesus Crucified. She died on April 7, 1680 at the age of twenty-four. She is known as the "Lily of the Mohawks". Devotion to Kateri is responsible for establishing Native American ministries in Catholic Churches all over the United States and Canada. Kateri was declared venerable by the Catholic Church in 1943 and she was Beatified in 1980. Work is currently underway to have her Canonized by the Church. Hundreds of thousands have visited shrines to Kateri erected at both St. Francis Xavier and Caughnawaga and at her birth place at Auriesville, New York. Pilgrimages at these sites continue today. Bl. Kateri Teckakwitha is the first Native American to be declared a Blessed. https://www.kateri.org/our-patron-saint/
Saint of the day July 14 Saint Camillus-Patron of nurses and the sick. Born in Naples in 1550, St Camillus was very tall, (six foot six) and, as a young man, hot-tempered and a wild gambler. He spent some time in the Venetian army fighting the Turks before contracting a disease which left him lame in one leg. He then lost everything through gambling. For a few months he worked as labourer for the Franciscans. During this time, he experienced a change of heart and tried to join the order, but his health prevented this. Instead he offered himself to the hospital of San Giacomo in Rome. In time he became bursar there. Later, on the advice of St Philip Neri, Camillus offered himself for the priesthood. He was ordained on Pentecost of 1584 by Lord Thomas Goldwell, Bishop of St Asaph, Wales, (and the last surviving Catholic bishop of Great Britain.) Camillus then retired from his service at the hospital, and he and some companions moved to the Hospital of the Holy Ghost, where they assumed responsibility for the care of the patients there. His nursing order later became known as the Camillians. Members of the Order devoted themselves to victims of Bubonic plague, in their homes, in hospitals and prisons. Some rowed out to look after galley slaves on war ships, others went to the battlefields of Hungary and Croatia, setting up the first recorded 'military ambulance unit'. The large, red cross on their cassock remains a symbol of the Congregation today. This was the original Red Cross, hundreds of years before the International Red Cross Organization was formed. St Camillus was a pioneer in insisting on fresh air, suitable diets and the isolation of patients with contagious diseases. He set up 15 houses and eight hospitals working in them personally himself. He suffered a number of serious illnesses himself, but continued working almost until the day he died, in Genoa in 1614. He was canonised in 1746.
Read more about the Camillians here: http://www.camillians.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camillus_de_Lellis
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