The Rights of Catholic Women [pp. 844-848]

Thze Rights of Catholic Women.
only knit them more closely to old
friends and to natural claims; and
this is seldom consistent with much
exterior activity soon after conversion. It is very rarely advisable to
undertake any work of importance
without the advice of a judicious confessor; a just appreciation of one's
personal strength and weakness is too
rare a gift to be relied upon as a
right.
It is our misfortune in the United
States that the number of communities is very small in proportion to the
work to be done; but though a clergyman would rather receive assistance
from religious than from any one else,
he would gratefully accept the aid of
women of the world, provided they
were possessed of judgment, tact, and
perseverance.
To take up a charitable enterprise
from love of excitement and lay it
aside just as one's assistance had become valuable, would not be a proceeding modelled on the actions of
the early Christians.
To make one's way into a public
institution to patients or prisoners in
a manner at variance with the regulations of the establishment, would not
tend to advance the cause of religion.
To foster the whims of the poor
and excite in them false wants, would
add to their sufferings, not lessen them.
All these mistakes may easily be
made by well-meaning persons who
have not prudence. With fidelity,
modesty, and common sense, it is impossible to make serious blunders,and
it is possible to do a great deal of
good without the sacrifice of much
time or comfort.
Those who have health and leisure
can work for the church; those who
are too busy or too ill to undertake
missionary labor can pray for the
church. All who have an hour to
spend or an ave and pater to recite,
or an ache or a pain to offer to A1
mighty God, can do their share of the
blessed work.
Without questioning the fact that
the highest of all vocations is the call
to a religious life-conceding the
point that the work done by women
has been usually better done by re ligious than by women of the world we think there is a tendency to deny,
to that obligation resting upon us all
to do the work God marked out for us,
the name of vocation, unless it leads
us to a life in the community or to
marriage. We venture to predict that
an important share is to be taken in
the work of the church in this country by women who have neither a
vocation to join a religious order nor
to marry.
There is a correspondence between
the various vocations of religious orders and those of persons living in
the world. Let us read over the
golden record, and decide which
path we are called to follow. There
are the working orders, Sisters of
Charity, of Mercy, of the Good Shepherd; the teaching orders, Ursulines,
Sisters of the Visitation, Ladies of
the Sacred Heart, and that sweetest
of orders, the Sisters of Notre Dame,
whose fame is hidden behind humility and obedience; and the contemplative orders, on whose prayers hang
the fruit of thousands of energetic
enterprises.
Most of the prisons, work-houses,
and hospitals in the United States
need the influence of judicious women. As such institutions are almost exclusively filled with poor people, and as more than half our poor
people are Catholics, more than half
the inmates of asylums, penitentiaries, etc., are Catholics; it is, then,
a matter of justice that Catholic prisoners, patients, and paupers should
be under Catholic influences. Obedience to discipline is a principle most
strongly inculcated by the church,
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