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SIMONE WEIL BELIEVED IN GOD "I was brought up by my parents and my brother in a complete agnosticism, and I never made the slightest effort to depart from it; I never had the slightest desire to do so . . . In spite of that, ever since my birth . . . not one of my faults, not one of my imperfections really had the excuse of ignorance. I shall have to answer for everything in that day when the Lamb shall come in anger." (Panichas, 1977, 111) "Christ . . . is truth itself." (Panichas, 1977, 23) "It is in affliction itself that the splendour of God's mercy shines, from its very depths, in the heart of its inconsolable bitterness." (Ibid., 107) "Every existing thing is equally upheld in its existence by God's creative love. The friends of God should love Him to the point of merging their love into His with regard to all things here below." (Ibid., 113) "I do not need any hope or any promise to know that God is rich in mercy. I know the wealth of His with the certainty of experience; I have touched it." (Ibid., 106) "If we really love God, we necessarily think of Him as being, amongst other things, the soul of the world; for love is always connected with a body, and God has no other body which is offered to our senses except the universe itself. Then each occurrence, whatever it may be, is like a touch on the part of God; each even, each thing that takes place, whether it be fortunate, unfortunate or unimportant from our particular point of view, is a caress of God's." (Weil, 1956, 322) "We should give God the strict minimum of place in our lives, that which it is absolutely impossible for us to refuse Him - and earnestly desire that one day, and as soon as possible, that strict minimum may become all." (Ibid., 326) Panichas, G.A. The Simone Weil Reader. New York: David McKay Co. Inc. 1977. Weil, S. The Notebooks of Simone Weil, Vol. I. London: Routledge and Kegan Publ., 1956.
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