~June 9
She was beautiful in appearance,
and had a very lovely face;
she had inherited gold and silver
and cattle and fields, and
she maintained her estate well and made it flourish.
No one spoke ill of her.
-Book of Judith
Among the many strong female figures in the Hebrew scriptures, the warrior maiden Judith is one of the most memorable. When her people were subjugated under the tyrannical Holofernes, Judith took it upon herself to convince the king to entertain her—and then decapitated him while he slept.
That dramatic incident is what we usually remember when we think of the Biblical Judith. Yet before and after that heroic action, Judith was a woman whose life resembles ours: working to sustain her family through her own enterprise. She was recognized among her people for the care she took with her fields and those who worked them. And out of that everyday discipline, Judith drew the strength to act courageously when necessary. For each of us, too, our daily lives are the seedbed for the moments when we are tested.
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