Say yes to goodness

For each human being there is a date, unknown to all and to himself above all, but entirely determined, after which the soul can no longer keep its virginity. If before this precise instant, eternally marked, it has not consented to being taken by goodness, it will immediately be taken by evil.

A man can give himself over to evil at any moment in his life, for one gives oneself unconsciously and without knowing that one is introducing an external authority inside oneself; the soul drinks a narcotic before it gives its virginity. It is not necessary to say yes to evil to be seized by it.

But goodness only takes the soul when it has said yes. And the fear of the nuptial union is such that no soul has the power to say yes to goodness until it is pushed urgently by the almost immediate approach of the limiting instant where its fate will be fixed for eternity. For some the limiting instant can take place at the age of five, for others at sixty. In fact, it is impossible to situate it either before or after having passed through it, for the instantaneous and eternal choice only appears refracted by the passage of time. For those who have let themselves be taken by evil long before approaching the limiting instant, this instant no longer has any reality. The most a human being can do is to keep intact within him the faculty of saying yes to goodness until he is very near to it.

Simone weil

Simone Weil on Prayer taught by Christ

Pater aymohn ho en toyss ooranoyss,	Our father who art in heaven,
agiasthaytoh to onomasoo,	hallow be thy name,
elthetoh hay basileya soo,	thy kingdom come,
genaythaytoh to thelayma soo,	thy will be done,
hohss en ooranoh kai epi gayss	on earth as it is in heaven,
ton arton haymohn ton epioosion dos haymin saymeron	give us this day our daily bread
kai aphess haymin ta opheilaymata haymohn	and forgive us our trespasses
hohss kai haymeiss aphyemen toyss opheyletaiss haymohn	as we forgive those who trespass against us
kai may eisenenkayss haymass eyss peirasmon	and lead us not into temptation
alla rusai haymass apo too ponayroo	but deliver us from evil

Up until last september, I had not prayed even once in my life, at least in the litteral sense of the word. I had never addressed words to God aloud or mentally

The virtue of this practice is extraordinary and surprises me every time I do it, for, even though I live it every day, it goes beyond my expectation every time. Sometimes the first words already tear my thought outside my body and transport it to a place outside space from which there is neither perspective or point of view. Space opens up. The infinity of ordinary space is replaced by an infinity to second or third power. At the same time this infinity of infinities fills itself to the brim with silence, a silence that is not an absence of sound, and that is the object of a positive sensation, more positive than that of a sound. Noises, if there are any, only reach me after going through this silence.

Sometimes also, during this recitation or at other moments, Christ is present in person, but with a presence that is infinitely more real, more poignant, more clear and more full of love than the first time he took me.

I never would have taken it upon me to tell you all this if I wasn't leaving. And as I leave with more or less the thought of a probable death, it seems to me that I do not have the right to not speak of these things. For after all, in all of this, it's not about me. It's about God. I have nothing to do with it.

The words of the Pater are perfectly pure.  If you recite the Pater with no other intention than to pay the fullness of one's attention on the words themselves, you are completely sure to be delivered by this means from a part, as small as it may be, of the evil you hold inside you. In the same way if you look at the Holy Sacrement with no other thought than that Christ is there, and so on.

The only pure things down here are sacred objects and texts, the beauty of nature if you look at it for itself and not as a place for your reveries, and, to a lesser extent, human beings in whom God lives and works of art issued from divine inspiration.

That which is perfectly pure can not be anything else but God present down here. If it was something else than God, it would not be pure. If God was not present, we would never be saved. In the soul where there has been a contact with purity, all its horror of the evil that it carries inside it changes into love for divine purity. This is how Mary-Magdalene and the good thief were privileged by love

Simone Weil (from a letter in May1942)

Goodness

Every act should be considered from the point of view not of its object but of its impulsion. The question is not `What is the aim?' It is `What is the origin?'

'I was naked and ye clothed me.' This gift is simply an indication of the state of those who acted in this way. They were in a state which made it impossible for them not to feed the hungry and to clothe the naked; they did not do it for Christ, they could not help doing it because the compassion of Christ was in them. It was the same with Saint Nicholas who, when going across the Russian Steppes with Saint Cassian to meet God, could not help being late for the appointed time of meeting because he had to help a poor peasant to move his cart which had stuck in the mud. Good which is done in this way, almost in spite of ourselves, almost shamefacedly and apologetically, is pure. All absolutely pure goodness completely eludes the will. Goodness is transcendent. God is Goodness.

Simone Weil

Self-effacement

I cannot conceive the necessity for God to love me, when I feel so clearly that even with human beings affection for me can only be a mistake. But I can easily imagine that he loves that perspective of creation which can only be seen from the point where I am. But I act as a screen. I must withdraw so that he may see it.

I must withdraw so that God may make contact with the beings whom chance places in my path and whom he loves. It is tactless for me to be there. It is as though I were placed between two lovers or two friends. I am not the maiden who awaits her betrothed, but the unwelcome third who is with two betrothed lovers and ought to go away so that they can really be together.

If only I knew how to disappear there would be a perfect union of love between God and the earth I tread, the sea I hear....

What do the energy, the gifts, etc. which are in me matter? I always have enough of them to disappear.

May I disappear in order that those things that I see may become perfect in their beauty from the very fact that they are no longer things that I see.

I do not in the least wish that this created world should fade from my view, but that it should no longer be to me personally that it shows itself. To me it cannot tell its secret which is too high. If I go, then the creator and the creature will exchange their secrets.

To see a landscape as it is when I am not there...

When I am in any place, I disturb the silence of heaven and earth by my breathing and the beating of my heart.

Simone Weil 

Gravity and Grace

All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception.

We must always expect things to happen in conformity with the laws of gravity unless there is supernatural intervention. 

What is the reason that as soon as one human being shows he needs another (no matter whether his need be slight or great) the latter draws back from him? Gravity.

Lear, a tragedy of gravity.Every thing  we call base is a phenomenon due to gravity. Moreover the word baseness is an indication of the fact.

The source of man's moral energy is outside him, like that of his physical energy(food, air etc.). He generally finds it, and that is why he has the illusion- as on the physical plane- that his being carries the principle of its presevation within itself.

Simone Weil

Not-self

I must love being nothing. How horrible it would be if I were something.

Simone Weil