 At Solesmes, she was also introduced to the seventeenth century poet George Herbert by a young Englishman she met there. She claimed to feel Christ’s presence while reciting Herbert’s poem “Love”. As she fixed her full attention on the poem while suffering from her most intense headache, Weil came to see that her recitation had the virtue of prayer, saying, “Christ himself came down and took possession of me” (WFG 27). Importantly, she thought God “in his mercy” had prevented her from reading the mystics until that point; therefore, she could not say that she invented her unexpected contact with Christ (WFG 27). These events and writings in 1936–1938 exemplify the mutually informing nature of solidarity and spirituality in Weil’s thought that began in August 1935.