“The most beautiful life possible has always seemed to me to be one where everything is determined, either by the pressure of circumstances or by impulses…, and where there is never any room for choice.” — Simone Weil, Letter to a Priest

“Finally, let it be said that to surrender oneself to the will of others (as often happens with lovers and mystics) and so to find oneself at last rid of selfish pleasures, interests, and personal complexes, is in no wise a joyless act, nor one lacking in grandeur.” — Jean Paulhan, “Happiness in Slavery” (intro to Pauline Réage’s Story of O).

“There the conviction was suddenly borne in me that Christianity is preminently the religion of slaves, that slaves cannot help belonging to it, and I among others.” — Simone Weil, Letter to a Priest

“Since Christ demonstrated his love by doing such amazing things and suffering so radically for us, how can your mere words be enough to please the Beloved? Do you know what it means to be truly spiritual? It means to become a slave to God. We are branded with the sign of the cross. It is the token we have given him our freedom. Now he can offer us as servants to the whole world, as he offers himself. This does us no harm. In fact, he is granting us a great boon.

Until we surrender to this divine slavery, we cannot expect to make much progress.” — St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle

“[E]very time I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.” — Simone Weil, Letter to a Priest

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” — Ephesians 5: 21-33

“[He says of me,] ‘she sees the value both in sadness and in happiness, and revels in intensity and loss of control.’

I realize … that the way I view control is very central. I gain all my power, all my pleasure, from my ability to give myself over to things. [It is] a measure of trust … it is somehow so very simple … I feel that by giving up control I am gaining something so much more valuable … Simply said, I am a receiver, yet in receiving whatever … is thrown at me, I seem to add as much to the meaning of the gift as the giver. In a way, I am giving a gift as well… ” — me, age 18.