The new and much awaited commemorative urn for the body of St. Camillus de Lellis this morning arrived at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Campo Marzio in Rome and right now the work to place it in the chapel dedicated to the ‘Giant of Charity’ is underway.

The work of an artist of international fame, Alessandro Romano, this splendid sculpture in bronze, which will contain the famous relics of the body of St. Camillus and his simulacrum, will worthily replace the previous urn, and is in perfect harmony with the characteristics of the chapel and the whole of this Baroque church.

The author of this work is connected with St. Camillus and the Camillians by a touching personal episode. Indeed, he confided to us that he recovered from a coma at the age of nineteen. His then fiancée and now his wife prayed a great deal in the church of the hospital of St. Camillus where he had been admitted and the Ministers of the Sick who were then the chaplains of the hospital on seeing her and learning about what had happened to her spontaneously celebrated a Holy Mass of healing for Alessandro.

With great emotion the sculptor handed over the work after exactly a year of fervent and impassioned work. This is a work produced by this artist so as to render homage in some way and so as to be able finally after fifty years to honour the help that he had received.

With the arrival of this work at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene the celebrations for the fourth centenary of the death of St. Camillus truly begin. The new urn will be inaugurated on Saturday 6 July at 16.00, exactly a week after the official opening of the jubilee year, which will be held at Bucchianico, the town where the Patron Saint of the Sick was born.