Long Island Guild Holds First Spirituality and Medicine Retreat
August 13, 2023
By Dr. Peter Morelli
The Long Island Guild with the Student Guild at Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook held their first Spirituality and Medicine Retreat July 29, 2023 that proved to be restorative.
Student members Christina Mazza and Mahesh Tiwari served as co-facilitators. The featured guest speaker was Fr. John McCartney, the Guild Chaplain and pastor at Notre Dame Parish in New Hyde Park.
Fr. McCartney inspired attendees with a story about his father, who was a local general practitioner. He recounted that while he was at Georgetown Medical School, he came down with tuberculosis. He was given a poor prognosis but was healed through a surgical procedure that was new at the time. Dr. McCartney’s experience of being sick gave him empathy for his patients.
He experienced discrimination since his parents were poor, uneducated Irish Immigrants, yet that did not stop him. He started each day with a rosary on his way to work, asking for help and ended his day with a rosary, thanking God for His assistance. He lived a long healthy life until the age of 93.
Fr. McCartney reminded members that work in health care is a vocation and a calling. He assured the health care professionals and medical students present that God would equip them with the graces and skills needed to do His will.
After his reflection, members prayed Lectio Divina together, contemplating the parable of the Good Samaritan. Then the group chanted the Divine Mercy Chaplet and Psalms before breaking to have an optional holy hour, praying the scriptural rosary or going to confession. Father McCartney said a vigil Mass before attendees attended a candlelit dinner at the St. James parish center, where the retreat was held in Setauket, New York. Night prayer rounded out the retreat.
Some members plan to continue the theme of spirituality and medicine by joining members from the Fingerlakes and Albany Guilds for the NYS Catholic Lawyers and Medical Professionals Conference at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York later this month. And the Long Island Guild will hold its annual White Mass in October along with a guild meeting at St. Matthews Church in Dix Hills, New York.
Dr. Peter Morelli is CMA’s New York co-state director and member of the Long Island Guild.