The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-04-24
WOMEN OF THE CHURCH.


X
WOMEN OF THE CHURCH.
Often have / attempted to discuss
the women of the Church, and as
often have l failed to complete the
pleasant task because the words would
not flow to fit the ideas that. en-
tertained.
A woman is the sweetest and most
tender of Gods created beings when
living in harmony with that state or
dained for her, and, therefore, must
she elicit proper appraisement in
terms of speech when under discus
sion.
The Creator has endowed her with
a beauty of form, a symmetry and a
grace that is denied to man. Fash
toned in this mold by her Maker, she
was further gifted with natural mod
esty, a shyness and inherent coyness
that is absent from her male COM
panion.
These qualities belong to woman,
and she possesses them in all their
perfection and beauty the nearer she
approaches to grace and innocence;
from which departing, the charm is
broken, the spell of virtue that letters
the passions of man is lossened, the
queenly woman recedes into the posi-
ton of "only q woman"
All women must have been meant
in, 4I,O I, IN, hn T
pictured them, for God formed them
so nd-they are His handiwork. They
are the miStresseS of the preservation
of all these natural gifts in their full
ness if they will but follow their
nobler impulses and listen to those
sweet whisperings to which the ear of
man is not attuned and which can only
find Judgement in their more gentle
and tender hearts.
In no other religion than the Chris
tian, or in no other Church than the
Catholic Church can women find
greater incentive to the practice of
these virtues. Reminded ever of the
loving Mother of God, who is placed
before them as their model and guide,
they have as a pattern the most per-
feet of all women. AS the Mother of
Christ, she is by that fact, the Queen
of the Christian world and entitled to
the reverence and veneration that has
been shown towards her by the Church
of Christ. AS the Mother of the
Saviour of mankind, she must appeal
particularly to Christian mothers who
can intimately feel and know her sor-
rows and instinctively fly to her for
heavenly intercession, whilst they bear
their burden of natural sorrows and
garden the earth with the roses of
heaven"
AS the Holy Virgin, devoted to life
of retirement, from which she tremu-
lousy came forth at the command of
her God, she is the model for that
band of holy women who have quit
the allurements of the world to lead
a life of self-sacrifice that they might
emulate the virtues of their holy guide
and win the approval of her Son, their
Saviour
In every Catholic home there is a
niche for a statue or room for a pic
ture of the Blessed Mother, that she
might ever be before the family as an
example of purity, chastity and holt
ness, which is bound to leave an inn
press upon the minds and hearts of
those who dwell beneath the roof.
With the incentive before them and
the constant admonition of the Church
for her children to follow the "Star of
Hope" with love and veneration, it
would seem impossible that women
particularly could wander far from the
path of rectitude, but unfortunately
such is not the fact, for our Catholic
women, who should be the models of
chastity, are too often a source OF
scandal to their neighbors and friends.
The worldly spirit has caught them
in its deadly mesh, in which they wrig-
gle. and twist in wanton fashion, cast
ing modesty to the winds and proving
themselves but wicked sirens, seeking
their own destruction and Turing to
unhappy ends the butterflies of men
who 1utter about them like moths
about candle.
The inordinate vanity of women, ex-
hibited in their love of glitter and
show as exemplified in their manner
of dress, is the cause of it ALL Follow.
ing the conventions of wanton age,
they plunge headlong into extremes
that rob them of innate modesty and
push them forth under the flaming
light of brazen impudence, lost to re.
serve and womanly dignity.
In assemblies where Catholic women
gather, we see that they follow the
extreme fashions of the times as other
women do, and it is distressing to OBJ
serve that the better precepts that had
been dinned into their ears from child
hood have proved to be without force
Tor effect.