Waiting on God

A work first published in English in 1951, Waiting on God forms the best possible introduction to the work of Simone Weil, for it brings us into direct contact with this amazing personality, at once so pure, so ardent, so utterly sincere, yet normally so reserved that only her closest friends guessed the secrets of her inner life. The first part of the book concerns her letters written to the Reverend Father Perrin, O.P., who befriended her at Marseilles and, the only priest she knew, became her intimate friend. The second part of the book concerns essays and reflections on such subjects as education, human affliction and the love of God, prayer, and forms of the implicit love of God.

Part 1: Letters
1. Hesitations Concerning Baptism
2. Same Subject
3. About her Departure
Part 2: Letters of Farewell
4. Her spiritual Autobiography
5. Her Intellectual Vocation
6. Last Thoughts
Part 3: Essays
7. Reflections on the Right use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God
8. The Love of God and Affliction
9. Forms of the Implicit love of God
10. The Love of Our Neighbour
11. Love of the Order of the World
12. The Love of Religious Practices
13. Friendship
14. Implicit and Explicit Love
15. Concerning the 'Our Father'
16. The Three Sons of Noah and the History of Mediterrean Civilisation