1st Reading, 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

From: Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31

Epilogue: Poem of the Perfect Wife

[10] A good wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. [11] The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. [12] She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. [13] She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. [19] She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle. [20] She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy. [30] Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. [31] Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
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Commentary:

31:10-31. The book closes with a beautiful acrostic poem (the first letter of each verse corresponds to a Hebrew letter, in alphabetical order) about the qualities of the perfect wife in the context of a rural family in ancient Israel. The whole poem is probably symbolic. The prologue to the book depicted Wisdom as a woman who invites everyone to a banquet prepared at her house. Now, in this ideal woman who always knows the right thing to do in every situation, we can see once more the wisdom that God has left stamped on creation.

The poem reveals the moral strength of women. John Paul II comments that this strength “expresses itself in a great number of figures of the Old Testament, of the time of Christ, and of later ages right up to our own day. "A woman is strong because of her awareness of this entrusting", strong because of the fact that God ‘entrusts the human being to her’, always and in every way, even in the situations of social discrimination in which she may find herself. This awareness and this fundamental vocation speak to women of the dignity which they receive from God himself, and this makes them ‘strong’ and strengthens their vocation. Thus the ‘perfect woman’ (cf. Prov 31:10) becomes an irreplaceable support and source of spiritual strength for other people, who perceive the great energies of her spirit. These ‘perfect women’ are owed much by their families, and sometimes by whole nations” ("Mulieris Dignitatem", 30).
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Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Reprinted with permission from Four Courts Press and Scepter Publishers, the U.S. publisher.