THE GAMBLING SAINT

Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis, Priest
Jn 15:9-17

The feast of St. Camillus de Lellis is an optional memorial in the liturgy of the Church. It is worth celebrating it however. His life is an outstanding example for all of us.

Camillus came from a noble family of Chieti in Abruzzi, Italy. He was born in 1550. He entered military service. In 1582, he founded a religious society dedicated to the care of the sick. When he passed away in 1614, his followers continued his work and established hospitals. Today, there are more than one thousand members of the order he founded, calling themselves “Camillians” and persevering in his charism.

One secret though! Camillus was a hopeless gambler. He was addicted to gambling before he was converted. After conversion, he left military service and eventually became saintly.

My description of Camillus’ conversion and rise to sanctity is over simplified. Certainly, his conversion and holiness did not happen overnight. But the fact remains: he was a gambler who was converted and became a saint.

Gambling becomes a vice when one is addicted to it. When gambling becomes an addiction, it becomes immoral. And like all forms of addiction, gambling is based on a lie. The lie that many gamblers realize quite too late in their addiction is that gambling does not give true joy, lasting joy, genuine joy.

The Gospel prescribed for the memorial of St. Camillus today reveals to us the secret of authentic joy. It is the kind of joy that the world can neither give nor take away. Love is the other name of that kind of joy. To know that we are loved by Jesus as much as the Father loves Him and to remain in that love by loving others as much as Jesus loves us is the only joy that makes us all winners. Anyone who has this kind of love never loses; unlike in the love of gambling where one loses more often than wins or wins but only to lose the next bet. Camillus faced the deceiving secret of his gambling and learned to live according to the secret of Christ’s love. He stopped placing his stakes on a game of chance and bet his whole life instead in a “match” called “loving”. And never did he lose again.