...Anyway she wants....

I just came across this brief meditation from Adrienne von Speyr's book Lumina/New Lumina:

If the Church's bodily surrender were correctly understood, there would be no more need for any prudery; bridal mysticism, too, would be totally pure. The essence of the feminine lies in surrender; but woe to those who lose their way in their surrender, who do not stop before they have sold themselves.

How amazing is this reflection? JPII says that our sexuality shows us that we are receptive but not passive. We permit the man to give himself to us, but we must first give our "yes" before we allow the gift to be given (not just in sexuality, but in any dimension of male-female interaction). And yet she adds, "stop before you have sold yourself..." What a quotation for a Catholic feminist! Hold onto your "yes," your consent. This is what makes women strong, secure, and ultimately able to soften men. To surrender doesn't mean to be passive, to be a dormat. Surrendering has limits precisely so that our feminity can be realized. It makes me think of the quote from My Big Fat Greek Wedding: "The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And the neck can turn the head any way she likes."

...And "without prudery"...how great is this? She knows that woman should engage the world...the secular world and the bodily world...and not to shy away from earthly things.

I'm obsessed.