St. Gualtero (Walter of Lodi)

St. Gualtero was the only child of Aliprando and Adelazia, pious parents who were childless so long that they promised God they would devote any child of theirs to the Church. They kept their pledge, giving the boy a good education, and by age fifteen Gualtero was working as a Hospitaller friar in the San Raimondo il Palmerio hospital in Piacenza, Italy, beginning his lifelong devotion to care of the sick and poor. His father died not long after; his mother entered a convent, Gualtero sold off and gave away all their property, and the two devoted themselves to God. Gualtero worked in then San Bartolomeo hospital in Lodi, Italy, living as a sort of anchorite on the grounds. He founded clinics for the poor and pilgrims in the Italian cities of Fanzago, Vercelli, Tortona, Crema and Melegnano. With the financial assistance of the city of Lodi and the archbishop of Milan, Italy, he and a fellow priest founded the Ospitale della Misericordia (Hospital of Mercy) in Lodi, which attracted the services of many brothers, sisters and hermits, and the adjoining church of Saints James and Philip on 30 April 1206. Known for his ascetic life, working and travelling barefoot and dressed in sack cloth, he could heal by prayer and always gave away anything he had that was more than his immediate need.  His feast is July 22.