Nothing is more difficult than prayer. In all other tasks of religious life, however exacting, one can sometimes rest, but there is no rest in prayer, up to the end of one's life.
Simone Weil
When I think of the act by which I should enter the Church, nothing gives me more pain than the idea of separating myself from the immense and unfortunate multitude of unbelievers. I have the essential need, and I think I can say the vocation, to move among men of every class and complexion, mixing with them and sharing their life and outlook, so far that is to say as conscience allows, merging into the crowd and disappearing among them, so that they show themselves as they are, putting off all disguises with me. It is because I long to know them so as to love them just as they are. For if I do not love them as they are, it will not be they whom I love, and my love will be unreal.