On the occasion of the feast day of St. Francis we offer you a short reading from the book of Antonio Barzaghi on the dev: 4 October: the feast day of St. Francis of Assisiotion felt by St. Camillus for this saint

‘Camillus especially honoured St. Francis of Assisi, not least because, in addition to having been placed under his protection by his mother before he was born, he was himself twice a novice in the Franciscan Order of the Capuchins.

He went a number of times on a pilgrimage to Assisi and to the places sanctified by that great and humble saint of Umbria.

1600 – towards the middle of May, Camillus left from Rome to visit the houses in upper Italy, halting at Bucchianico and Loreto. From there he went on to Assisi ‘to venerate the memory of the saint and to commend to his effective protection the little tender plant that had cost him and still cost him so many tears’.

Barzaghi, I viaggi di San Camillo de Lellis, Generalate Curia, 1983, p. 28.

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On the cover: Caravaggio, St. Francis in Ecstasy, 1595, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut