“The love of God in affliction is the purest form of love.”
— Simone Weil[verifiable: Waiting for God, the essay on Affliction and related letters; translation by Emma Craufurd]
Commentary
This sentence expresses a theme that runs through Weil's late writings, that affliction offers the most direct occasion for love of God, because it strips away every consolation that the self might depend on. Her account of affliction owes much to her own illness and to her reading of the Passion, and she came to regard the suffering of the innocent as a means of union with the divine. Simone Pétrement's biography (1976) documents the spiritual crisis of the years 1938 to 1942, during which these ideas took shape. Eric Springsted's study (1986) traces the link between Weil's account of affliction and her theology of the cross. Robert Coles emphasises that for Weil affliction was not a justification for suffering but an occasion for attention and for the refusal of illusion. The sentence should be checked against the essay in Waiting for God, since its wording depends on the translation.
Commentary
This sentence expresses a theme that runs through Weil's late writings, that affliction offers the most direct occasion for love of God, because it strips away every consolation that the self might depend on. Her account of affliction owes much to her own illness and to her reading of the Passion, and she came to regard the suffering of the innocent as a means of union with the divine. Simone Pétrement's biography (1976) documents the spiritual crisis of the years 1938 to 1942, during which these ideas took shape. Eric Springsted's study (1986) traces the link between Weil's account of affliction and her theology of the cross. Robert Coles emphasises that for Weil affliction was not a justification for suffering but an occasion for attention and for the refusal of illusion. The sentence should be checked against the essay in Waiting for God, since its wording depends on the translation.