Rejoice and exult in the Lord, venerable daughters, and give Him unceasing and abundant thanks, who has deigned to draw and call you out of the dark manner of life of this world to the harbor of quiet and religion. Consider continually whence you have come and where you have been counted worthy to arrive. You have faithfully forsaken the darkness of the world, and have happily begun to behold the light of Christ. You have despised the fire of lust, and have come to the refreshment of chastity. You have spat out gluttony, and have chosen abstinence. You have rejected avarice and luxury, and have held fast to chastity and mercy. And although the struggle will not be lacking to you even to the end of life, yet, by God's gift, we are secure concerning your victory.
But I beg you, venerable daughters, that as much as you are secure concerning the past, so much may you be anxious concerning the future. For all crimes and sins swiftly return to us, if they are not daily overcome by good works. Hear the apostle Peter saying: Be sober and watch, for your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5). As long as we live in this body, day and night, with Christ as our helper and leader, let us fight back against the devil. For there are some—which is worse—who are negligent and lukewarm, who glory only in the name of Christianity, and think it is enough for them to have changed their garment and to have taken up the mere habit of religion, not knowing that word of the prophet:
My son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation (Sirach 2); nor do they consider the saying of the Psalmist: For the words of thy lips I have kept hard ways (Psalm 16); nor that which the Apostle said: Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of heaven (Acts 14). For to lay aside worldly garments and to take up religious ones we can do in the moment of a single hour; but to retain good morals continually, and to labor against the evil yet sweet pleasures of this world as long as we live, we must do with Christ as our helper, because not he who has begun, but he who has persevered unto the end, he shall be saved (Matthew 24). First of all, therefore, every soul that desires to keep religion...
...let her strive with all the strength of faith to conquer the craving of gluttony and to avoid drunkenness; and let her take care to keep a temperate meal and a moderate table, so that her flesh may neither be weakened by excess of abstinence, nor provoked to luxury through abundance of delicacies. Then, casting off pride, which God resists, let her lay the foundation of deep humility; let her detest envy as a viper's poison, and flee it; let her bridle the tongue, and spit out detraction as poison; let her neither utter idle words herself, nor willingly admit into her ears those uttered by others. Let her accustom herself to have a manner of dress neither too mean, nor notably showy, nor dangerously elegant;
let her either read the lesson more frequently herself, or receive the words of the reader with the whole eagerness of her heart. Let her continually draw the water of salvation from the divine fountains of the Scriptures: that water indeed of which the Lord says: He that believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (John 7). From the flowers of paradise also, that is, from the meanings of the holy Scriptures, let the holy soul strive continually to adorn herself; from them let her hang precious pearls unceasingly upon her ears; from them let her fashion for herself rings and bracelets while she practices good works. There let her seek the medicines for her wounds, there the spices of chastity, there the burnt-offerings of compunction.
But she who desires to preserve religion with an immaculate heart and a pure body, let her either never go out in public, or certainly not except for some great and unavoidable necessity. Do not, I beg you, do not give occasion or grant familiarity to anyone whatsoever. She who, with Christ's help, desires to conquer lust, ought to flee familiarity; and she who has not spurned unworthy familiarity will quickly ruin either herself or another. But perhaps some woman says: I do not flee familiarity for this reason, that I wish to have something to conquer, and I desire to hold my adversary captive. Beware lest the adversary begin to rebel against you; beware lest that captivity lead you captive. Hear the Apostle saying: Flee fornication (1 Corinthians 6).
Against the remaining vices we must resist with all strength; but against lust it is not expedient to fight back, but to flee. Be therefore a fugitive from lust, if you wish to be an outstanding warrior of chastity. But attend diligently to what I have said. When some woman alone is incited by the goads of lust, let her, with Christ's help, resist against it as much as she prevails, because she has nowhere she can flee; but when, through another's companionship, the devil supplies an opportunity for pleasure, let the holy soul flee that very familiarity as much as she prevails, as we have said. But that we may be able to keep all these things, let us hold to a reasonable abstinence: for true is the saying of that most holy man: As you restrain the belly, so also its venomous motions.
Let us also preserve true humility as much as we can. For the integrity of the flesh is not long preserved where the mind is corrupted by the swelling of pride; especially if the flame of anger rises up more frequently, it quickly consumes the flowers of chastity and virginity. For a chaste soul devoted to God ought to have familiarity not only with strangers, but not even with her own kinsfolk. For if the vessels that are offered to the Church, that they may be placed on the sacrosanct altars, are called holy by all, and it is unlawful that they should afterward be recalled from the church into a lay house, or fitted to human uses, what dignity, do you think, does a soul have before God, created in His image?
As therefore holy vessels, once destined to serve human uses, neither can nor ought to be recalled from the church, so it is not fitting, not seemly, not expedient that any religious woman be entangled in many obligations to her kinsfolk, or bound by the pernicious familiarity of any strangers whatsoever. Above all things I admonish you this: that you flee the evil of rivalry as a viper's poison, and so preserve among yourselves the sweetness of charity, that you may prepare for one another spiritual medicines through holy conversations. For there are some—which is worse—who, when they join together, rather inflict wounds by detracting from one another, or by murmuring against their superiors, than compound spiritual medicines.
But you, holy and venerable daughters, if you see anyone faint-hearted, offer consolation; if proud, apply the medicine of humility; if you see her angry, minister the refreshment of patience. If you are nobly born, rejoice rather in the humility of religion than in the dignity of the world. Hold firmly therefore your hands to the plow, and do not look back (Luke 9). Remember Lot's wife (Luke 17), who, looking back, was turned into a pillar of salt. Never let an oath, never let a curse proceed from the mouth of a virgin. For guard with all care not only your bodies, but also your hearts, on account of that which is written: With all watchfulness keep thy heart (Proverbs 4);
and that which the Lord said in the Gospel: For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts (Matthew 15). For if nothing evil is thought in the heart, whatever is holy is brought forth from the mouth; because, as it is written: Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh (Matthew 12). For the tongue is wont to bring forth that which the conscience has supplied from the workshop of the heart. And therefore, if you wish to bring forth good things from your mouth, always think in your heart those things which are holy. So ought you to devote yourselves to reading and prayer, that before all things you may also be able to work something with your hands, according to that which the Apostle says: He who does not work, let him not eat (2 Thessalonians 3). Dedicate also the better part of the day to holy work, and accustom yourselves to be free for reading.
Let your prayer so proceed from the heart with silence, that it is scarcely heard in the mouth. For he who wishes to pray with a loud voice harms much both himself and another, while by his garrulity he suspends another's mind from holy and secret prayer. Loathe and despise showy garments, which serve not usefulness but vanity. For many display in their works what they love in their morals; they prepare for themselves worldly ornaments, loving the world and serving pleasure or luxury. But let you have nothing in common with such women, but let all ornaments, by which the flesh is arrayed for luxury, be spat out as hostile and contrary to your purpose.
For there are some—which is worse—who, for the vanity of this world, are more eager to give their effort to earthly desires than to the reading of the divine justice, since they wish to prepare, with great expense of ingenuity and superfluous outlay, beautiful coverlets, embroidered tapestries, and feather-work, and other things similar to these, for the lust of the eyes: not knowing that which the Lord cries out through John the evangelist, and says: Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world; for all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the ambition of the world (1 John 2). What does it profit a virgin to guard the integrity of her body, if she is unwilling to avoid the concupiscence of the eyes?
But you, holy souls worthy of God, do everything spiritually. Follow Christ, holding perseveringly what you have ardently willed. Again and again, holy souls consecrated to God, I beg, and with all humility I give counsel, for the sake of preserving the reward of virginity, that with all your strength you strive to repel unbecoming familiarity from yourselves and from your souls. For to preserve the dignity of holy religion, most holy solitariness is a witness.
For familiarity with anyone, if it begins to be frequent, sows nothing but corruption, sprouts vices, conceives lust, bears disgrace, stirs up madness, feeds wantonness, nourishes petulance, exalts falls, builds ruins, purchases confusion, treasures up reproach, heaps up accusation, inflames excuses, and by troops all at once gathers them into a bundle. For if the holy soul is willing to guard her secret, and assiduously flees the evil of familiarity with all the strength of her mind, that holy solitariness is for her an unconquered rampart of sanctity, a strong assault upon infamy, an exercise of continence, an emptying-out of luxury, a secure peace of the virtues, and a restless warring against wars; the summit of purity,
and the prison of lust; the harbor of honor, and the shipwreck of disgrace; the mother of virginity, and the enemy of uncleanness; the dignity of integrity, and the renunciation of fornication; the will to good works, and the affliction of vices; the refreshment of modesty; the acquisition of triumphs, and the detriment of crimes; the rest of salvation, and the exile of perdition; the life of the spirit, and the death of the flesh. All these evils will be strongly repelled, with God's help; and those good things which we have spoken of will be happily acquired, if disordered familiarity is spat out by holy souls.
Attend to yourselves, O holy souls, for among all the contests to which Christian warfare is ever a companion, only the battles of chastity are harder, where there is daily combat and rare victory. Hard are the battles of chastity, but greater are the rewards. No one securely receives the palm of chastity, for whom, as hard as are the outcomes, so glorious are the fruits. Therefore, that you may happily receive, with God rewarding, the rewards of chastity and the crown of virginity, always exclude dangerous familiarity from yourselves. Run faithfully, that you may be able to arrive happily, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.