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A review by ben_smitty
Awaiting God: A New Translation of Attente de Dieu and Lettre a Un Religieux by Simone Weil, Sylvie Weil, Bradley Jersak
5.0
I finished this 2 months ago (sorry for the late review). I still can’t stop thinking about it.
Jersak’s translation and edition of the text allow Weil’s main ideas to bloom: each essay echoes the one before, unearthing a deeper meaning to Weil’s ideas on the connection between attention, charity, and justice.
Here are some repeated themes:
1. Humans have a natural tendency to hate the afflicted: the poor, lonely, destitute demand too
much from us, especially attention, which we can’t give. Most of the time, we have to pretend
they don’t exist.
2. Charity is a gift from God. Loving the afflicted means paying attention to them, but it is a
miracle.
3. In fact, loving the afflicted means seeing your neighbor as equal: you don’t see yourself as a
“giver,” and the afflicted don’t see themselves as the “given”: “If the gift [of bread] is well
given and well received, the passing of the piece from one human to the other is something
like true
communion.”
4. Paying attention to God, especially in prayer, is what saves the soul.
5. Punishment, if it comes from God, is a gift. Reward, if it does not come from God, is a curse.
Both reward and punishment from God allow Him to enter us: “The stone that kills and the
piece of bread that feeds have exactly the same virtue if Christ is present… Bread and stone are
love.”
6. Disobedience is impossible; obedience is embedded in the way things are (as the stone obeys
the law of gravity), but we can fix our gaze (attend… again) on Christ and be transformed in
the process.
Weil’s “Hesitations About Baptism” and “Letter to a Priest” are painful to read. They’re difficult to comment on, as they stem from what she believed was her calling to exist outside the church for the sake of others. She argues that the incarnational nature of Christ penetrates through all religions, leading her to believe that the Catholic church is catholic in name only.
Though I disagree with her here (and I’m glad Jersak saved these essays for last), I can respect that she followed her convictions through to the end.
I wrote an article on Weil for my church during the George Floyd murder here: https://www.christchurchbangkok.org/blog/58073/attending-to-those-who-can%27t-breathe-simone-weil-and-the-afflicted-neighbor
Jersak’s translation and edition of the text allow Weil’s main ideas to bloom: each essay echoes the one before, unearthing a deeper meaning to Weil’s ideas on the connection between attention, charity, and justice.
Here are some repeated themes:
1. Humans have a natural tendency to hate the afflicted: the poor, lonely, destitute demand too
much from us, especially attention, which we can’t give. Most of the time, we have to pretend
they don’t exist.
2. Charity is a gift from God. Loving the afflicted means paying attention to them, but it is a
miracle.
3. In fact, loving the afflicted means seeing your neighbor as equal: you don’t see yourself as a
“giver,” and the afflicted don’t see themselves as the “given”: “If the gift [of bread] is well
given and well received, the passing of the piece from one human to the other is something
like true
communion.”
4. Paying attention to God, especially in prayer, is what saves the soul.
5. Punishment, if it comes from God, is a gift. Reward, if it does not come from God, is a curse.
Both reward and punishment from God allow Him to enter us: “The stone that kills and the
piece of bread that feeds have exactly the same virtue if Christ is present… Bread and stone are
love.”
6. Disobedience is impossible; obedience is embedded in the way things are (as the stone obeys
the law of gravity), but we can fix our gaze (attend… again) on Christ and be transformed in
the process.
Weil’s “Hesitations About Baptism” and “Letter to a Priest” are painful to read. They’re difficult to comment on, as they stem from what she believed was her calling to exist outside the church for the sake of others. She argues that the incarnational nature of Christ penetrates through all religions, leading her to believe that the Catholic church is catholic in name only.
Though I disagree with her here (and I’m glad Jersak saved these essays for last), I can respect that she followed her convictions through to the end.
I wrote an article on Weil for my church during the George Floyd murder here: https://www.christchurchbangkok.org/blog/58073/attending-to-those-who-can%27t-breathe-simone-weil-and-the-afflicted-neighbor