Gruenewald, M. J.

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 10 | Number 3 Article 9July 1942The Catholic Physicians' Guild on the MarchM. J. GruenewaldFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationGruenewald, M. J. (1942) "The Catholic Physicians' Guild on the March," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 10: No. 3, Article 9.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol10/iss3/9J; .. ......-...--- ' ...._ ;: ~ -,-,,~ 1 ' · X H E L I N A 0 R E Q U A R T E R L Y ! c~r~~ ~-~ f~i,H6~1'\ PHYSICIANS' GUILD ON THE MARCH,! , ' ,. f ~(', f ,J,!\, < • ·•~r<JtifHT .I'EV. MONSIGNOR M. J. GRUENEWALD ·.:i~.~ _.!,:;··",,-'·, J ~ ry0 Cu .... zi.Loa, DioCEsE or BELLEVILLE, ILLINOIS, AND ·" ~ · o. c\\~ ~,. . . : . j ' ' ·- ... '- 0 F" M E 0 \ .-- _.,;. CH~PLAIN or THE BELLEVILLE GuiLD '1, ...... .. · ... - ... .. . _ _ ;: .. ~ . . 'i-· Qpe qf the most intensely inter- ~ast him forth into the darkness . -. \' I I. l J, i ,. i i I · ! estillg parables of the Gospel is outside, where there shall be weep~ ·• .• I~''. th11t of the talents. As you will ing and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. . .;, rec~U, there · were three servants. 25). · 'fhe ·one h&.<l received five talents Lest we be like this unprofitable . .}: anq by industry had earned other ~ervant and bury the talent which ... ~ five and wa& praised by the mas- we . r~ceived in our ~ocation. ~nd ·.1 -r.· ter; so alsQ the servant who re- trammg as a Catholic physician, .. Y1 ceived twp talents and earned iet us give some thought to the other two was likewise praised. tremendous advantages and possi-But the last servant who had re- bilities for good which we find in ceived only pne talent, went and .our Catholic Physicians' Guild, :;:> buried it and when the master of and after we have thoroughly con-the }louse asked for an accounting vinced ourselves, let us go out and ·· this last seryant stated: "Master, sell the Guild idea to others in our I know that thou art a stern man; profession. thou re11pest where thou hast not With this in view, I beg leave sowed and gatherest where thou · to present certain experiences and ·• hast not winnowed; and as I was convictions gathered during eight afr~id, I went away and hid my years of my connection with the talent in the earth; behold thou (7uild in our Diocese of Belleville hast wh~t is thine." And his mas- in the hope that one or the other ter answered and said to him: thought may be of some little help "Wjcke!i and slothful servant, to you. thoq didst know that I reap where Guilds from their earliest incep-I dQ not sow and gather where I ~ion in England in the seventh ct'n-have pot winnowed. Thou shouldst tury had for their purpose, in therefore have entrusted my addition to their social and corn-mopey to the bankers and on my mercia! objectives, a well-defined retprn I should have gotten back religious or spiritual program. my Joan with interest. Take away When Leo XIII encouraged therefore the talent from him and Christian workingmen to form . giv~ it to hil}l who has the ten tal- guilds, or unions, after the rnan-ents. ror to every one who has ner of the historic guilds of work-shall be given, and he shall have ingmen, he directed that these abupdance; but from him who does unions or guilds were also to help n'ot pavf!, even that which he seems each member better his condition to have shall be taken away. But to the utmost in body, soul and as for the unprofitable servant, property. Encyclical: "It is clear r Gsl THE LINACRE QUARTERLY that they (these unions or guilds) ~~~ must pay ~·pecial attention to the ~;. duties of r1rligion and morality." (;.~ The impprtance of the spiritual ;;; ' side of thf Catholic Physicians' ·:t. Guild becomes all the more evident f,' when we COllsider further the pur-~'· pose of the Guilds and the reason ·:. for their e:dstence. 'The Guild is ~i"' 1 ., not just apother medical society. ·~~ You alreadjr have ~ s~fficient num-J\ her of medtcal societies, and good r· · medical so,..ieties. But the Pliysi-iJ. ~ F cians' Guild is a Clt.tholic Action ,; I. society. The word Action would already· tep a large part of the ft story. Your meetings are not to be gatherings characterized by high-soundtng eloquence, which qQickly effervesces and produces no action ~nd no lasting results. But you mtJsthave a definite, care-. fully planned program and each meeting mtlst see you working to improve and expand that pro-gram, to Cflrry it out more effec-tively. It is thurefore important that you take c;ue, first of all, of your own spirit11al interests. Accord-ing to the jetter of Pope Pius XI to Cardinal Bertram, dated Nov. 13, 1938, the object of Catholic Action is t~e participation of the laity in the apostolate of the hierarchy. Ita essence consists in the pursuit of one's own perfec-tion, plus an apostolate which is common tp Catholics of every rank. Its end is to advance the kingdom of God. His Ex<:ellency, the Most Rev. Apostolic :pelegate to the United States, Archbishop Cicognani, ex-plains this matter further: "Cath-plic Action is based upon, and pre-~tuppose& the fidelity of the C&-th-olic to those means of personal ilanctification 11.nd those evidences pf public worship without w~ich there can be no Christian life at ~ll. First of all the Catholic will pot only be faithful tQ, but he will diligently cultivate the spirit and the practice of prayer; atten-dance at Holy Mass; the frequent reception of the Sacraments, par-ticularly the life-giving Sacram'ent of the l{oly ~ Eucharist .... " The Belleville Catholic Phy~i­~ians' and Dentists' Guild has therefore revised its constitution to read as follows: "The purpose pf this Guild shall be: (a) To con-stitute ll brotherhood of physi-cians and dentists who will teach and practice the ideals of the Catholic religion by diligently cul-tivating the spirit and practice of prayer, by attendance at FJoly Mass even on weekdays if possible, ~y the frequent reception of the Sacramepts, particularly the life-· ~iving Sacrament of the l{oly Eucharist, and by annual atten-dance at a retreat for laymen." 'Ve are well aware of the fact that doctors are busy men. They are not masters of their own time, but they must assiduously guard against becoming too busy to look after the supreme interest of our lives, becoming like the busy Martha, "careful and troubled about many things," but neglect-ing "the one thing necessary." These professional men will be-~ome so immersed in their business I I'll] THE LINAOR~ QUARTERLY of {~laking JDOney that they will find time for only the shortest pos-sible 1\fass on Sunday morning. They seldom go to Holy Com-mt.tqioq ; thel never make a visit to the :Ulessed Sacrament, never attend jl. deyotion, all for the rea-soq that tpey have no time. Their Guild calls upon them for meet-ings, but they have other appoint-mepts in tl.teir office or with pa-tients. 'fhere are certain points in con-nection with the life-giving Sacra-mept of the }Ioly Eucharist which we should like to emphasize in re-gard to Catholic physicians. We appeal to you to make a visit a day to the Blessed Sacrament. Mo-. t of yot.t have access to some Cat}wlic_: institution where there is a chapel and where you can go day by· day to talk over your diffi-culties ~nd your cases with our Lonl, 'Vho invites you so tenderly when He says: "Come to me all yo4 th~~rt labor and are heavily burqened and I will refresh you." 1\'{onsignor Sheen advocates a daily holy hour on the part of Ca tholic and non-Catholic alike during these distressful times. It would be a splendid thing if our Catholic physicians would set asiqe t~e required time for one Holy Hour a week in their pro-gralll. :Uut it is especially in Holy Cmpmunion that we receive the source of our strength and our help in fulfilling the primary pur-pose of our sojourn here on earth. Yo arc familiar with serums a'ld antitoxins. Holy Communion is the most powerful antidote 11gainst sin. · It restrains and neu-tralizes our evil inclinations, it al-lays our concupiscences and the irascible part of our nature. St. Jgnatius, Martyr, calls !loly Communion a "pharmacum im-pwrtalitatis" and he bases his statement on the words of our Lord: "He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath ever-lasting life and I will raise him up on the last day." Moreover, Holy Communion is a most wonderful tonic, not only to build us up spiritually, because Holy Com-munion is truly the bread of the strong, but to make of us other Christs, according to St. Paul's statement: "Christ lives in me and J live in Christ." What different Catholics our doctors would be if they would avail themselves of the privileges which they have in Holy Com-munion, getting back to the early Christian practices of receiving whenever they attend Mass. And is not this what we pray for when we petition God in the Our Father to "give us this day our daily bread"? Theology teaches that those who during life were devoted to the reception of the Holy Eucharist will after death have a ~plendor all their own. They will have the so-called "aureola Euch-aristica." But the Guild calls for action, not only in your own lives but also in the lives of others. Your first quty is to the members of your own profession. 'Vhat about the Catholic physicians in the outly-r 10! THE LINACRE QUA~TERLY ing district s of our large cities? Is there any effort being made to reach them ( Are they allowed to suffer frollJ want of moral sup-port, perhaps in danger of ship-wreck to their faith, perhaps seri-ously tempt ed to compromise the [. teachings of their Catholic faith .·· in the pract ice of medicine? I am glad to know that the Detroit l ( Guild has adopted the bulletin I I idea. This will serve the Guild as a means o-f reaching these scat-tered mem~ers, of bringing them into the or~anization. Your duty is not fully done to the members of your ewn profession until every last eatholic physician who is eligible has been given an oppor-tunity to join the Catholic Physi-cians' Guild of your Archdiocese. The merpbers of the Belleville Guild, desirous of providing them-selves with the best of spiritual reading, hll-ve voted to have the Guild buy' a large quantity of Father Stedman's Daily Readings from the ~vew Testament and a copy of tl~ese readings was sent out to every member of the Guild. You also have a highly special-ized apostolate in the lives of others on a~count of your profes-sion. One of the Guild's primary purposes i1> to uphold Catholic teaching. I am happy to know that members of the Detroit Guild were successful in having a paper on birth control taken off the pro-gram of a recent medical meeting. It has been interesting to ob-serve the progress of the Belleville Guild's work in East St. Louis es-pecially against indecent litera-ture on the newsstands and on the fll agazine racks Qf the drug stores. The physician is in a particularly advantageous position with re-gard to these druggists who are pependent upon the physician for his prescriptions. Since the dentists of Illinois pave no Catholic society for their own profession which is function-ing locally, and since it was from the very beginning the wish of pur Bishop that the Catholic dentists also be given membership in the (Juild, we have followed the lead of the Archdiocese of Newark in this rnatter and have invited and ac-cepted the dentists for members in our Belleville Guild. Another purpose of our Guild is to aid the mission work of the Church and this has been done by the gathering of several large ~hipments of sample medicines and gf even cash donations to mission work. The Guild retreat cannot be too highly recommended. I hope that · all Guild members will find it pos-sible to gather annually for a closed retreat at some institution so as to give the members a chance in the quiet seclusion of a retreat to check up on themselves and as-certain whether they are fulfilling the first and most necessary part of Catholic Action; also whether they have not possibly been the unprofitable servants who have literally taken the master's talent and but·ied it and have not pro-duced anv fruits, either in theit· pwn lives 'or in the lives of others. r 111 

The Catholic Physicians\u27 Guild on the March

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The Catholic Physicians\u27 Guild on the March

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