THE part played by women in the conversion of nations to the Gospel, suggests one of the most beautiful aspects of the history of Christianity. Nowhere do their real strength and their apparent weakness stand out in so touching a contrast. At first sight we might be tempted to believe that the fortunes of Catholic society and the great interests of the Christian world have been decided quite independently of any participation of the female sex. The Church has excluded women from the sacerdotal office, and has even commanded ...
Read More
THE part played by women in the conversion of nations to the Gospel, suggests one of the most beautiful aspects of the history of Christianity. Nowhere do their real strength and their apparent weakness stand out in so touching a contrast. At first sight we might be tempted to believe that the fortunes of Catholic society and the great interests of the Christian world have been decided quite independently of any participation of the female sex. The Church has excluded women from the sacerdotal office, and has even commanded them, by the voice of the Apostle, to keep silence in the company of the faithful. She has not called them to any share in her world -wide cares. She has abstained from burdening their feeble shoulders with the heavy weight of the apostolate, and when, at a given moment, she confided to them certain functions, these were the humblest of all: the duties of deaconesses or servants. By sweeping them aside from the great stage of history, by confining them to their own firesides in the name of the dignity of their sex, Christian women accepted with joy the humble role assigned to them by the Church. They gloried in their obscurity, and they constituted themselves the zealous guardians of the barriers within which the Christian law confined their activities. But although restricted within their immediate circle, imprisoned within the narrow limits of domestic life, their apostolate has not been lacking in fertility. More than once, in the decisive crises of the world's history, it has happened that the helm of the social ship has been in their keeping, and it has been by their feeble hands that the vessel has been steered towards the shining lighthouse of eternal truth. Wherever the faith of Christ has triumphed, women have had a share in the victory. They have conquered the world from the seclusion of their homes, by converting their husbands, by instructing their children. By the very fact of their wifehood and their motherhood, they have been the co-workers with Providence in the education of nations. The establishment of the kingdom of God in modern Europe is, in a great measure, due to their patient and ceaseless devotion. To sketch in a rapid survey all that civilisation owes to Christian queens, is to exhibit in its true light the historic importance of Queen Clotilda. She heads the long line of chosen women, who at the dawn of the modern world were the leaders and teachers of nations. The first in regard to chronological order, she is also the first by the surprising magnitude of the world in which she was called to bear a part. The conversion of the Franks, the glory of which she shares with the great Bishop of Reims, altered the centre of gravity of history: it caused the sceptre of the West to pass into the hands of the Catholic Church, and it assured to the new converts throughout a long series of ages a foremost place in the annals of civilisation. Converted to Christianity they gave an impulse to the rest of the barbarian world. Other nations entered the Church walking in their footsteps, and treading the path along which Clotilda had led the way.
Read Less
