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The Mystical Vision of Simone Weil in Relationship to Roman Catholicism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

F. Ellen Weaver
F. Ellen Weaver*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
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Abstract

Simone Weil was a mystic obsessed with the search for absolutes and with a holistic vision of the world. At the same time she was deeply concerned about the plight of the outcasts of society. This concern rooted her mysticism in reality and, like the biblical prophets, she decried societal abuses. She saw the Church as larger than the institution she was invited to enter through baptism. Her refusal to enter symbolically united her with the members of “common humanity” who were excluded from the institutional Church. This mystical vision was prophetic of the Church of Vatican II.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , Fall 1986 , pp. 321 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1986

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References

1 Weil, Simone, Seventy Letters, trans. Rees, Richard (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 137.Google Scholar

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., pp. 136-37.

4 The concept of “attention” in Weil's thought is an important one for understanding my analysis of her mysticism. The way that she defines “attention” is close to the classical definition of contemplation in works of Christian spirituality. In one place she says it is “the sole faculty of the soul which gives access to God…. Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty.” Furthermore, “Since prayer is but attention in its pure form, and since studies constitute a gymnastic of attention, it follows that every school exercise should be a refraction of spiritual life.” These quotations are taken from The Notebooks of Simone Weil, trans. Wills, Arthur (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952), 2:597.Google Scholar But see also Weil, S., “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies” in her Waiting for God, trans. Crauford, Emma (New York: Putnam's Sons, 1951), pp. 105–16;Google Scholar and Weil, S., “Attention” in her Lectures on Philosophy, trans. Price, Hugh (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 205–06.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 My translation of “à la fois prophète et témoin de l'absolu” from his “Introduction” to Weil, S., La pesanteur et la Grace (Paris: Plon, 1948), p. 9.Google ScholarAvailable in translation by Crauford, Emma as Gravity and Grace (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952).Google Scholar

6 My translation of “la pensée de Simone Weil, un nouveau catharisme, constitue un des dangers les plus graves que puissent affronter les consciences chrétiennes” in Moeller, Charles, Literature du XXe Siècle et Christianisme, Vol. 1: Silence de Dieu (Paris: Casterman, 1954), p. 280.Google Scholar

7 Weil, Simone, “Spiritual Autobiography” in Waiting for God, pp. 68–69.Google Scholar

8 de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, The Prayer of the Universe, selected from Writings in Time of War, trans. Hague, René (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 110–11.Google Scholar

9 Weil, , Waiting for God, p. 68.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., p. 72.

11 See Cabaud, Jacques, Simone Weil: A Fellowship in Love (New York: Channel Press, 1965), pp. 636–89Google Scholar for discussion of the possible literary nature of Weil's description of this encounter and for the text.

12 See note 4 above.

13 Weil, , Waiting for God, p. 64.Google Scholar

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., p. 67.

16 Ibid., pp. 67-68.

17 Ibid.

18 My translation for “Le nom d'opium du peuple que Marx appliquait à la religion a pu lui convenir quand elle se trahissait elle-même, mais il convient essentiellement à la revolution. L'espoir de la revolution est toujours un stupéfiant” from Weil, S., “Condition première d'un travail non servile,” La Condition Ouvrière (Paris: Gallimard, 1951).Google ScholarEnglish translation is available in The Simone Weil Reader, ed. Panichas, George (New York: David McKay, 1977).Google Scholar

19 Fischer, Claire Benedicks has done this well in a Graduate Theology Union-Berkeley dissertation, “The Fiery Bridge: Simone Weil's Theology of Work” (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International, 1980).Google Scholar

20 Weil, Simone, Gateway to God, ed. Raper, David (New York: Crossroad, 1982), pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

21 See, e.g., Weil, S., “Forms of the Implicit Love of God” in Waiting for God, pp. 137–215.Google Scholar

22 Weil, , “Last Text” in Gateway to God, p. 63.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., p. 64.

24 Weil, , Waiting for God, pp. 47–48.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., p. 49.

26 Ibid., p. 82.