I came accross this book, and so I thought I'd share bits and pieces of it with y'all from time to time. It's a series of talks given by the Archbishop of Rheims for the married women of his parish in the mid 1800's. He takes the Valiant Woman passage from Proverbs and goes through it in depth, line by line, from start to finish. I hope you enjoy it!
First Discourse: A Portrait of a Valiant Woman
To man is given, in a special manner, strength, wisdom, and
mental understanding; to woman, docility, the intelligence of the heart, and
that mysterious instinct for a hundred things which escape man’s notice.
Although strength of character is not generally considered a
prevailing quality in women, it does not thence follow that women are devoid of
force and courage.
But who shall find a valiant woman? She who can draw from stores of never-failing
courage the necessary energy to make head against the difficulties of her
position, its daily worries, hourly anxieties, and ever-recurring
contradictions and disappointments. She
who can bear up bravely under the many inevitable shocks of life; under family
jars, interior depression, and all those slights and wounds which, like the
legions of insects in autumn, are perpetually assailing the heart of a woman;
she who presides with unvarying prudence over the labors of her household and
all the details of housekeeping; who rules her servants wisely, and preserves
due order in the arrangement of that multitude of petty affairs which follow
one another through every hour of the day as quickly as the clouds of heaven
flit across the sky. Who shall find a
valiant woman, who shows herself superior to disaster, to calumny, to the
malice of men, and to the many blows of fate; and who, when the violence of the
waves is spent, still remains firmly rooted in the sea, a beacon of light to
poor shipwrecked mariners? Mulierum
fortem quis inveniet?[1]
Be true Christian women, really and sincerely religious;
make God the habitual guide and help of your whole lives, and then only will
you resemble that ideal of strength and constancy of which Christian heroines
have left us so many examples, causing even pagan philosophers to exclaim, “How
admirable are these Christian women!”
And when men are puzzled to solve those words of Scripture,
may they turn to your ranks to find their solution, and ever meet therein many
bright examples of the rare virtues of the valiant woman. Was it not to a Christian woman Saint
Chrysostom addressed this magnificent eulogy? – “You possess a science which
rises superior to storms; you have that energy of a strong mind which is more
powerful than many armies, more safe than walls and fortified towers.” We cannot believe that this race of noble
women is extinct among the Christians of this day.
A good woman is the most precious of the treasures of her
house; she is its life and light, shedding brilliant rays around her,
multiplied by countless reflections; she is its soul, pervading everything, and
leaving everywhere traces of her gentle influence.
Exert yourselves to merit and win your husband’s confidence,
which you will infallibly do, if you lead an exemplary life, and maintain
unshaken sweetness and patience amidst what may be most wounding to you. …
Religion alone can make women truly valiant in all the
circumstances of life; it alone can render them superior to all the accidents
and misfortunes of existence, the repugnances of nature, the defects of
character, and the continual annoyances and wounds by which the heart is, as it
were, ground between heavy stones, or, what is less painful, lacerated by a
thousand needle-points.
Real sincere piety can alone develop in women that moral
strength which overcomes difficulties, making them like birds which soar above
the clouds and tempests, and enabling them to fulfill all their duties with the
serenity of heavenly peace. But to carry
out the resemblance to birds, there must be wings, and God alone can adorn the
soul with those celestials wings, strong yet light, with which she mounts
swiftly aloft, as if disputing the prize of force and agility with the princes
of the air, according to the comparison of the Prophet, “That take their
diversion with the birds of the air.”
Our power often lies in making use of those wings of the
soul, especially when they are animated by the spirit of wisdom. May then our Lord bestow them on you as on
the woman of whom the Scripture speaks; they will not be superfluous in
assisting you to fulfill your mission of valiant women.
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