On The Lord’s Prayer

On The Lord’s Prayer collects two essays on the power of devotion by the influential mystic philosophers Saint Teresa of Ávila and Simone Weil. Reflecting on the Pater Noster prayer, the authors articulate an urgency of attention that floods all pretenses of our heartbroken present. With a new introduction to Weil’s text by the poet Ariana Reines.

Hailed by her posthumous publisher Albert Camus as “the only great spirit of our time,” the French theologian, philosopher and political activist Simone Weil (1909-1943) is now widely recognized as a patron saint of modern spirituality. Her writings such as Gravity and Grace advance a metaphysics of ascetic worship rooted in literature, Gnostic Christianity and anarchist politics. She died at age 34 of malnourishment, in solidarity with those living under German occupation. [publisher's note]