The Daily Pilgrimage

Good Morning, Pilgrim

Receive this day from God.

St. Camillus de Lellis was converted from disorder and became a father and servant to the sick and dying. He teaches charity that bends near wounds, performs repulsive duties patiently, seeks the sacraments for souls, and refuses to measure suffering persons by usefulness or convenience.

Ponder the mysteries of the Rosary and ask Mary to teach you the mind and dispositions of Jesus within them.

Formation in True Devotion - Day 232: Review and Deepening: True Praise beneath the Majesty of God

“If you wish to comprehend the Mother … comprehend the Son; for she is the worthy Mother of God.”
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort, True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 12

Ora — Begin with Prayer

Offer the day before spending it

Prayer gives the day its right beginning and its right end. Before work, conversation, news, or distraction claims the mind, adore the Blessed Trinity and offer every prayer, work, joy, suffering, and temptation to Jesus through Mary. Ask your Guardian Angel for help, and place the souls and needs entrusted to you beneath God's will.

Begin simply. Make the Morning Offering through the hands of Our Lady. Pray the Three Hail Marys for purity and final perseverance, ask your Guardian Angel to govern the senses and imagination, and name the soul or intention for which today's prayers and sacrifices will be offered. Do not rush these acts merely because they are familiar; let them place the whole day beneath God before the world begins to claim it.

O Lord, through St. Camillus, give me tenderness, endurance, and supernatural charity toward the sick and dying.

Quote of the Day

“I was sick, and you visited me.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew 25:36, Douay-Rheims

Today's Full Breviary Sermon or Proper Lesson

Elias, Christ, and the Gentile Church.

Matins - Second Nocturn - 9th Sunday after Pentecost

The verified Breviary witness for this observance is identified below. A complete English transcription has not yet been admitted, so no excerpt or summary is presented as though it were the full appointed text.

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, Sermon 201 for the Season

“The Blessed Elias was a type of the Lord our Saviour. Just as Elias was rejected by the Jews, so was the true Elias, even our Lord, rejected.”

• The Breviary reads Elias as a figure pointing beyond himself to Christ, Whom the synagogue rejected and Whom the Gentiles received.
• St. Augustine teaches that the ravens feeding Elias signify the Gentile Church, black by nature yet made comely by grace.
• False worship is judged, but grace gathers souls from the nations into the true worship of God.

Do not be scandalized when the true Prophet is rejected. Cling to Christ, renounce idols, and rejoice that grace can make the unworthy beautiful.

Walk with the Church

The Church has already begun praying. Enter her prayer.

Today the Roman year keeps 9th Sunday after Pentecost. Receive the observance as the Church gives it: first understand what is commemorated, then let its doctrine and worship shape the day.

Roman Martyrology

July 18

The feast of St. Camillus de Lellis, confessor, - founder of the Clerks Regular ministering to the sick, whose birthday is the 14th of July. Leo XIII. declared him Celestial Patron of hospitals and the infirm. — At Tivoli, in the time of the emperor Adrian, St. Symphorosa, wife of the martyr St. Getulius, with her seven sons, Crescens, Julian, Nemesius, Primitivus, Justinus, Stacteus, and Eugenius. Their mother, because of her invincible constancy, was first buffeted a long time, then suspended by her hair, and lastly thrown into the river with a stone tied to her body. Her sons had their limbs distended by pulleys and bound to stakes, and terminated their martyrdom by different kinds of death. The bodies were subsequently taken to Rome, and were found in the sacristy of St. Angelo in Piscina, under the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IV. — At Carthage, St. Gundenes, virgin. By order of the proconsul Rufinus, she was four different times stretched on the rack for the faith of Christ, horribly lacerated with iron hooks, confined for a long time in a filthy dungeon, and finally put to the sword. At Dorostorum, in Mysia, in the time of Julian the Apostate and the governor Capitolinus, St. JEmilian, martyr, who was cast into a furnace, and thus received the palm of martyrdom. — At Utrecht, St. Frederick, bishop and martyr. — In Spanish Galicia, St. Marina, virgin and martyr. — At Milan, in the reign of Maximian, the holy bishop Maternus. For the faith of Christ and the church entrusted to him, he was thrown into prison and often scourged. Finally he went to his rest in the Lord with a great renown for his repeated confession of the faith. — At Brescia, the birthday of St. Philastrius, bishop of that city, who in speech and writing combated heretics, especially the Arians, from whom he suffered much. Finally, he died in peace, renowned for miracles. — At Metz, in France, St. Arnulf, a bishop illustrious for holiness and the gift of miracles. He chose an eremitical life, and ended his blessed career in peace. — At Segni, St. Bruno, bishop and confessor. — At Forlimpopoli, in Emilia, St. Ruffillus, bishop of that city.

Gospel of the Day

He wept over it.

9th Sunday after Pentecost - Luke 19:41-47

“If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace.”

Let Our Lord's tears soften you. He does not warn Jerusalem coldly; He grieves because peace was offered and refused.

Learn from Today's Saint or Feast

St. Camillus de Lellis

Confessor and servant of the sick.

St. Camillus de Lellis was converted after a life marked by disorder and military hardship, then gave himself to the service of the sick with extraordinary tenderness.

He founded the Clerks Regular who minister to the sick, teaching his sons to serve the suffering as Christ Himself. His witness teaches that infirm bodies are not burdens to be hidden; charity bends near sickness, especially near death.

In exile, sickness can become lonely. Ask St. Camillus for a Catholic instinct toward the infirm: practical charity, patience, and reverence.

Breviary Witness for the Day

Mercy at the bedside of the suffering.

Matins - St. Camillus de Lellis

• The Breviary remembrance of St. Camillus presents a converted soldier who became father and servant to the sick.
• His religious work shows that bodily misery is not beneath supernatural charity, and that the sick and dying must not be abandoned.

Recover a Catholic instinct for the sickbed. Visit, pray, provide for the sacraments, and remember that charity becomes most serious near death.