Today the Church commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, and thus the fulfillment of Our Lord’s promise to his disciples that He would send the Paraclete to “teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” (John 14:26).

Upon their receiving the Holy Spirit, Who appeared as tongues of fire, the apostles were emboldened with a courage and conviction they had did not have before. They began to preach the word of God and to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They added great numbers to the Church as the result of the gifts of the Spirit which they had received.

As I consider the ways the Lord calls me to act in the world, I often reflect on the ways I might better reflect my baptismal commission to preach the Good News in all dimensions of my life. In addition to my vocation as a husband and father, I ask that the Lord enliven my healing vocation as a physician. For all of us who are physicians driven by the Faith, I pray that we may be the hands and feet of the Divine Physician, and that our work may always be animated by the same Holy Spirit Who descended on the apostles, Who comes upon each of us in the Sacrament of Confirmation, and Whom Our Lord promises will guide us in all He instructed.

To this end, the Feast of Pentecost is an ideal time for us to renew our conviction to the Faith in the way we practice medicine. For primary care physicians who are motivated by their desire for a seamless witness to Our Lord in our professional practice and personal vocations, may the Holy Spirit unite us all in voluntary association with other faithful Christian physicians who share this calling through the Benedict Medicine Consortium!
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--James O. Breen, M.D.

The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton recently opened registration for its 43rd Annual Chesterton Conference, to be held from July 25-27th, 2024 in Philadelphia. A prolific writer, Chesterton’s boisterous spirit and bounding joy come through across his innumerable works written in a wide array of genres. His playful use of language and succinct forms of expression are highly quotable.
G.K. Chesterton, along with Hilaire Belloc and other early 20th Century thinkers, was a vigorous proponent of the economic theory of distributism. Based on the principles of Catholic social teaching, distributism advocates for a wider distribution of private property and the ownership of families over their means of sustenance. It is a rebuke of both socialism (in which property is controlled by the state) and laissez-faire capitalism (in which property tends toward concentration in monopolies).
Considering the state of the healthcare system in the United States today, those who believe that the average working-class American ought to be able to access primary care without relying on the insurance company cartels or a government program would do well to reflect on what medicine might look like if G.K. Chesterton were a doctor today. 

--James O. Breen, M.D.