VII:11 one however shall always have the certainty of the reward in heaven: and descendants shall harvest what has been sown in sorrow.
HEADING V
DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES IN WORK
Not every work shall produce its desired effect: that alone which shall be inspired by secure principles and by a clear vision of its goal. I shall refer to the principal ones: from these the others shall be made clear.
The two goals of the direction of women
The word direction here has to be understood in the broadest sense of the word: including all the work that the priest could do in behalf of the religious, moral and physical welfare of women, not only through the confessional and the pulpit, but also outside the church and in private relations. Well: it is directed toward two noble and holy ends: to train the virtuous woman in order to turn her into an apostle. They are the corollary of what has been mentioned till now. We, however, would like to note the intimate connection that passes between one and the other of these ends: they are in a certain manner invisible. Who is virtuous, that is one who loves the Lord, necessarily is zealous. St. Augustine says: He who does not love is not zealous; and St. Thomas: Zeal is the product and the fruit of charity. The Love of God, so St. Francis de Sales writes, lies in rejoicing in what is good that is in
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God and in desiring for him what he does not have. Now, nothing can be wanting to God but a greater extrinsic glory that is promoted by the sanctification of the just, by the conversion of sinners, by the entrance of the souls in purgatory to heaven. From this comes that continuous labor of saints for the spread of the Gospel, for the preaching of the divine word, for the instruction of children. They did not spare themselves from labors; and because it was not always possible to preach, exhort, to give counsel, they often took recourse in fasting, in prayers and in flagellation.
Church history is even full of these examples, given by men and women. The Love of God and of souls are nothing but two rays of the same flame, rather, it is the same flame.
Those women who have true piety towards God are as well good mothers of families, affectionate spouses, they are as well those who in the parish, with work and example, better promote what is good. To expect to have similar apostles without first having them as saints, is like wanting to keep a lamp without oil burning; some enthusiasm perhaps would be possible, but suggested perhaps by vanity, by interest, by natural inclination.
These are weak foundations that shall soon let the building crumble; fickle fire that shall burn out soon after the first outburst.
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It follows naturally that how much shall the sanctification be, so much fervent shall be the zeal. If the work to accomplish is great, great should also be the virtues of the workers: and a priest cannot set aside this truth: that is to start the building of the tower without first having estimated how much would be needed to finish it.1
And yet today the promoters of an independent morality do not fail to tell women: do good for the sake of good, do good for the joy of knowing grateful hearts, give out of the sweetness of doing good. From its fruits, one knows the plant,2 so Jesus has said: now one can see how little and insipid are the fruits of such a principle. With a remunerating God suppressed, a God who sees what is hidden,3 the greater party of men experience much lesser pleasure in keeping than in giving:4 the poor is cast in a condition of inferiority that embitters: from him is taken away also the greater consolation, which is that of the reward in heaven.5
To further clarify this principle, it is suitable to add another principle, that is, to declare the characteristic quality of the holiness of women.
Spirit of sacrifice and of humility. - A schoolteacher, a subscriber and assiduous reader of Rivista delle signorine, (Magazine for young ladies) was praising the magazine for discovering the tendencies of the modern female soul: It always publishes a page of mysticism that raises the soul to sweet Christian sentiments,
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letting one forget for some moments the harsh reality of life. I learn how to pray in the open, better than before the altars. Nothing monotonous, convent-like, medievalism, of stagnation... In simpler terms: none of the eternal sermons of the abneget semetipsum,6 nothing of the spirit of sacrifice.
It is not, however, the emotions that need to be developed in women, rather the manly strength that they lack. Poetic ecstasies, vague dreams, vapid prayers, generous desires that are often sterile in their idealism ought not to be encouraged: instead, that which nourishes on the reality of life. Tell me, a priest observed, do the mystical pages that raise you up and console you, do they also make you better persons? They develop in you only the emotional part and, allow me to say it, your aesthetic sense, or else do they strength your character, do they make you take generous decisions where it is needed, do they awaken in you hidden energies, taking you away from your 'I': in a word, do they enlighten you as regards your duties and do they infuse in your virtues for accomplishing them courageously? Do the mystical pages make you breathe or pray? Do they make you cry sweet sterile tears, or to act in a manly way? With this, we do not pretend to condemn emotions: no, what is condemned is sentimentalism; there ought to be emotions, so much so in the creature of love, that is the woman; but it should not be the foundation
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of spiritual life. Firm and profound religious shall shape7 the banks of that mystical river where your ardent affections channeled, they shall flow strong, serene, dignified towards their goal to which God has destined them, while bringing with their flow the fruitfulness of a virtuous and zealous Christian youth. May God bless the powers of your heart, powers that a certain mysticism would weaken and lose. Poetry has to be in life, but it should not lead it. It is so said: the negative foundation of every virtue is humility. But this so simple a truth, apparently, is not so easy to fathom. It is better said of women than of men. A woman's position, be she a daughter, wife, mother, is always a position of humility and of a certain submission. And it is in staying in her place that she shall be loved, venerated, respected. And whoever would speak of zeal, it is enough to remember that the darkest forms of ingratitude, the most unexpected surprise, the most hidden sacrifices are awaiting them. And how come women should be at their places, while winning over the natural inclination for them to show off and to present themselves without the spirit of sacrifice and of humility? How would they persevere in zeal?
The state of an individual's health is measured by the pulse; the spirit of piety, of women in particular, is measured by the spirit of humility8 and of sacrifice. Put9 it to the test, here is an excellent means for knowing, offered to the priest:
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exercise it in the most varied manners, here is an excellent means of training. Let one read as well the good books of ascetics: let one go through the teachings of the Church: let him examine the modern spirit of devotion,10 such as the ones taught by the three principal teachers: St. Philip Neri,11 St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonsus de' Liguori; this truth shall always be confirmed. Lest I be misunderstood, I immediately add another principle. The most profound, the most practical, the most useful treatise of this virtue is La formazione a l'umiltà (Formation to humility) (Libreria Sacro Cuore - Torino - L. 1.70).
Piety has as well to be joyful. - Also St. Teresa did not quite like gloomy and sad devotees. The world judges with terrible seriousness pious persons and here is one of its writers draw a picture of one: He is an unbearable person having an impatient, manic character, that gets irritated with everything, that is always complaining, happy only when he is peacefully reclined on his armchair with a warmer under his feet, a cup of coffee on the table and the cat nearby.
It is a maliciously falsified portrait: and yet some old maid has made it appear true. Now, Christian asceticism, the asceticism of St. Frances de Sales and of St. Philip especially, does not teach that. St. Francis says: A sad saint is a saint who's sad and St. Philip: In my house, there's no room for scruples and sadness. No teacher
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of the Church has ever said that in order to please God one has to sport a long face, or that there is an increase of merit when one puts up a long face in God's service. Besides: who has the greater reason to be content: one who does his duty or one who betrays it? One who is God's friend or one who is hated by him? Are not the good souls the ones who enjoy the greatest inner peace?
It is true: the pious soul at times feels the nostalgia for heaven; bears the boredom of this world wherein virtue is often hidden, while vice takes the scene; it is wounded by the sight of threatened innocence... This, however, is always a resigned pain, enlightened by hope, comforted by the sight of the crucified and by the hope for heaven.
Here we ought to be insisting even much more: these things, however, shall be made even clearer by the following directive norm. In fact, it is asked: why should woman's piety be joyful?
Because the secret of each of her success is goodness. - I shall sketch the portrait of a loving woman and one will obviously understand it. Her nature is cheerful, her conversation is dignified and open; she cheers up those around her. Such was the virgin Aselly12 of whom St. Jerome wrote: No one surpasses in amiability that virgin, austere, serious but cheerful, happy and serious at the same time. Pleasant and industrious, she enjoys spending everything at the service of others,
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also when these bother her or interfere with her plans. She also was liked by everyone: to everyone she always had a pleasant gaze, to all she smiled. Her charitable indulgence excuses her neighbors, defends their reputation and, when idle talks threatened to start a fire, she would extinguish it with a good word. St. Teresa turned to be the defender of those absent: so much so that it used to be said that wherever she was present, those absent were safe from the arrow of grumbling.
She is condescending to the taste, the will, the point of view of others in everything that is not against conscience. With clever dexterity, she speaks of the virtue of her neighbor, narrates edifying events of which she was witness: she is more capable of these delicate art that others do not notice the defects. Always sweet and patient, she bears with a serene face, without vivacity and resentment, burdens of all kinds.
She is a lily among the thorns, and no matter how much the thorns pierce the lily, this does not cease being a lily, that is, sweet and pleasant.
Our Lord was meek,13 sweet, affable, gentle: and the people held on to his ways. Something similar is done by the amiable woman. On her face one always reads this statement: Taste, experience, my yoke is sweet, and my burden is light.14 Paola and Eustoquio15 wrote to Marcella:16 Accept favorably
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our prayer, o good and amiable Marcella, more amiable to us than everything that is on this earth: whose affability has attracted us to follow your way. Nothing builds as much as the sweetness of ways, so writes Francis de Sales. And Faber:17 Like a magnet, goodness draws one's neighbor. If one should speak of women, then these words assume greater strength. Generally, women may not assume the logic of reasoning, but they have in themselves the strength, and not the power of commanding: in gentleness alone can she find the secret of every success. Woman is lovable already by herself, seductive by nature and by art; but if to all this is added Christian sweetness, she shall be victorious through these powers put together: nature, art, virtue.
Goodness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or instruction; these three things have never converted anyone without goodness coming in somehow (P. Faber). And virtue should be the real foundation of goodness: inasmuch as it happens sometimes, particularly in a woman's life, that under a service graciously rendered, under a simple smile, is hidden a heroic act. If she lives in a family or in an environment where piety is hated, her sweetness is much more difficult and at the same time more meritorious. She should be most diligent in her duties,
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inasmuch as the malicious ones would be scrutinizing her so that, finding something, they could exclaim: devote persons are worse than the others! She should be taking away from the practice of piety whatever might have a shadow of what is rigorous in her manner of talking, of wearing clothes, in her way of life. She should often be hiding also what good is not commanded, to keep hidden certain books and objects of devotion, not to show certain relations with persons known for their devotion and piety. It is well understood: this to the point where conscience allows. Blessed are the meek, for they shall posses the earth,18 that is, the heart of men, so explains St. Francis de Sales.
Being of our times. - Providence, so Etienne Lamy19 explains, has not left us masters of the moment we become her workers, according to different ages. She chooses for us different means, with them, she admitted us to collaborate in her work. Because of this, we do not have, even if we belonged to the iron age, to shed sterile tears on the greatness, on the beauty, on the energies destroyed. We have not been created to inhabit the tombs of the dead, but in order to raise new dwellings on the earth of the living! Let us not join the ranks of the unjust who protest against the present hour by accusing it of thousands of miseries and by closing our eyes to so many of its virtues and social works. Let us not join those resigned, who seem to want to wait for the full destruction of society
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and not only that, but also of the good workers. We are not among the scared who grieve over scientific progress and of its spread through popular instruction. Let us as well set aside the bewailers: Ah! Those times! Now what do you want! There's nothing we can do, we already have fallen so low!
Ours is the XX century; and it is in this century that we are tasked to live work. We ought to belong to this century,20 that is: to seek to understand the needs and see to them. This is easy inasmuch as God has given us a temperament, of customs in relation with our time and not with the times past. The study published on the subject matter in 1912 on the Jeune fille contemporaine (Young contemporary ladies). Today organization counts; well, let us organize what is good and the good ones: today, love for beneficial reading is being spread, well, let us provide good reading; today we speak of all and of everything, well let us train ourselves and let us also speak; today those who do something for the people, whose name has become the only passport for one to get accepted in society, well, let us also work for the people. Has not religion always been the inspirer of what is truly the moral-religious welfare of all?
We belong to our times; and let us see to it that women belong to our time. Let us make them understand that today the people thirst for the truth and hence more meritorious than giving bread as alms that offering which the good press is expected to give.
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Let us make them understand that it is not enough to raise as good one's own family, while enemies, strongly organized, erode the family's foundation by wanting to introduce divorce, abolish catechism, etc.
It is more difficult to understand the value of social work than those of charity inasmuch as a great number of persons moves about and are determined by the material events that strike the eyes. Then, women, so spontaneously angels of charity, regulate themselves more than men do according to perceptible data. They see the poor person, not the cause of poverty; they see the person sick with tuberculosis, and not the cause of his illness. To find the causes of the misery and of the tuberculosis, an effort is required, a scientific research, a faculty of abstraction and of synthesis inasmuch as one or the other are complex. Tuberculosis, for example, can depend on the house environment, nourishment, work, vice... Is it not perhaps easier to take care of the sick, without much research? - Well, here is one supreme difficulty that the clergy encounters in forming women of today; here is the serious need towards which the formation of the priest needs to be oriented today; one can give only what one truly has.
Every woman can cooperate with the priest's zeal. - Every woman, should she be a simple girl or a country girl, can always do a work of zeal.
And this is in order to respond to one difficulty
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that may arise spontaneously: how come such a weak creature, that is a woman, could perform such a great good as cooperating with the priest for the salvation of souls? Or else: considering as well that some women could do it due to a special social position, or through income, or because of education, how could one count on others, closed in convents, or confined in the mountains, on poor and ignorant farmers, on unhappy creatures, to whom nature seems to have proven itself so severe? Well: it shall not be useless to repeat: every woman, also the most despicable to the eyes of the world, could exercise zeal. For one to be convinced of it, it is enough to consider the different explanations listed above. Not everyone could write in newspapers, or teach catechism to children, or contribute to works of charity. Perhaps someone might even be without a family or of friends to whom she could extend a bit of her charity: but is there anyone who cannot at least recite the rosary? Is there anyone who cannot suffer something for the conversion of sinners? There would be some zealous women to teach the rosary to little ones, others to distribute parish bulletins, others to attend to the cleaning of the altar linens and the floor of the church. And here, it would not be useless to say: every woman has a charge of energies that ought to be engaged in doing good, otherwise they would find natural outlets in evil: precisely
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11 Pope St. Gregory VII (1073-1085), was a Benedictine. With discernment, he knew how to purify the Church of his time: he repressed simony, struggled against concubinage of churchmen, raised the prestige of the papacy. Matilde of Canossa offered him hospitality in Canossa, where, as a sign of submission, he had to see Henry IV of Germany. Gregory VII, went in retirement in Montecassino and then in Salerno where he died.
1 Cf. Lk 14:28.
2 Cf. Mt 12:33.
3 Cf. Mt 6:4,6,18.
4 The opposite of the words of Jesus recalled by St. Paul in Acts 20:35: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
5 Cf. Mk 10:21 and Lk 6:35.
6 Cf. Mt 16:24: “Deny yourself”. DA has abnege for abneget.
7 DA has formeranno = they shall shape instead of formerà = it shall shape.
8 DA has pietà = piety, mercy instead of umiltà = humility.
9 DA has mettetelo = put (plural) instead of metterlo (singular).
10 The devotio moderna (modern devotion) was a movement of religious reformation with an ascetical and mystical background, started in the Netherlands towards the end of the XIV century under the impulse of Geert Groote and of the religious communities he founded (the Sisters of common life of Deventer and the Brothers of common life, at first adherent to the rule of St. Augustine - foundation of the convent of Windesheim, 1387 - and then in 1400, organized as an autonomous congregation). The most representative work is the Imitation of Christ (1441) attributed to the canon regular Thomas a Kempis.
11 Philip Neri (1515-1595), Florentine, founded in Rome the Oratory that took after his name. He put together with mystical experience a great capacity for contact with people. Before dying in his eighties, Philip burned the manuscripts of his books kept in his cabinet. Much earlier, at 24 years old, he made a bundle of all the books in his possession (except the Bible and the Summa of Thomas) and he brought them to the market for sale, then he distributed what money he got to the poor. From that moment, God alone would occupy his thoughts and his heart.
12 Aselly or Asella: Roman virgin praised by St. Jerome in a letter to Marcella (MM).
13 Cf. Mt 11:29; 21:5; Jas 3:17.
14 Cf. Mt 11:30.
15 DA has Eustachio. Paola, belonging to a patrician Roman family, when turned a widow, followed the ascetic ideal of Marcella together with one of her daughters named Eustochio or Eustoquio.
16 Marcella, a Roman widow of the nobility, had built a hermitage in her own palace along the Aventino. Many other aristocratic women joined her thus forming the first monastery, in its broad sense, ever known in Rome. St. Jerome was the spiritual father and teacher of Scriptures at the cenobium of Marcella (MM).
17 Frederick William Faber was an English Oratorian, born in Calverley (Yorkshire) on 28 June 1814 and died in London on 26 September 1863. Educated in Oxford, since youth, he was a writer of verses and an ardent disciple of Newman, who also was an Oratorian. He was ordained Anglican priest in 1839 and in 1841 made long journeys in Europe, describing these in his diary. On his return to England, he became the rector of Elton (Huntingdonshire, England). In 1842 he visited Rome where Card. Acton obtained for him a private audience with Pope Gregory XVI. With an admirable frankness, the Pope invited him to join Catholicism in Rome. The conversion of Newman (9 October 1845) made him finally decide and on 27 November 1845, also Faber was received in the Catholic Church by the bishop of Northampton.
18 Cf. Mt 5:5 and Ps 37:11.
19 DA has Lamj. Stefano Maria Vittorio Lamy (1845-1919) was a French politician of Cize, and an academician of France. A disciple of Lacordaire, he assimilated the latter's Christian ardor together with a lively awareness of the need for a penetration of the apostolate into the political and social life.
20 This was the persistent thought of Fr. Alberione since the night of prayer during the passage of the century 1900-1901 (cf. Abundantes divitiae gratiae suae, no. 15).