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Julian of Norwich attributes every aspect of our spiritual growth to Christ’s tender care for our soul. Our best response is to be malleable, teachable, and fully attentive to the promptings of the Spirit. But when we act in ways that harm ourselves or others, or when we fall into grievous sin, then we may think we have utterly failed to be faithful to Jesus Christ. . . .
And then we, who are not at all wise, think that all we have begun is nothing, but it is not so. Because it is necessary for us to fall, and it is necessary for us to see it. For if we did not fall, we should not know how feeble and how wretched we are in ourselves, nor also we should not so completely know the marvelous love of our creator. For we shall truly see in heaven without end that we have grievously sinned in this life. And notwithstanding this, we shall truly see that we were never hurt in his love, nor were we ever of less value in his sight. And by the trial of this falling we shall have a high and marvelous knowing of love in God without end. For strong and marvelous is that love which may not, nor will not, be broken for trespass. Once again, Julian reminds us that “sin is behovely” (that is, necessary) because, by the mercy of God, it can show us our weakness and our sheer unhappiness when we try to rely on ourselves alone. Recognition of this frightening human condition can bring us to sincere repentance and reveal our total dependency on the unconditional love of God. Furthermore, Julian is certain that “even if our earthly mother might suffer her child to perish, our heavenly mother Jesus may never suffer we who are his children to perish.” But when we fall, how are we to seek forgiveness? Like a child in distress and dread, Julian envisions us running quickly to our mother Jesus saying, “My kind mother, my gracious mother, my dearworthy mother, have mercy on me. I have made myself foul and unlike to thee, and I may not nor can not amend it but with thy help and grace.” For the child “naturally trusts in the love of the mother in wele and in woe.” And he wills that we take ourselves mightily to the faith of holy church, and find there our dearworthy mother in solace and true understanding with the whole blessed community. For one single person may oftentimes be broken, as it seems to the self, but the whole body of holy church was never broken, nor never shall be without end. And therefore it is a seker [secure] thing, a good and a gracious thing, to will humbly and vehemently to be fastened and united to our mother holy church, who is Christ Jesus. For the flood of mercy that is his dearworthy blood and precious water is plenteous enough to make us fair and clean. The blessed wounds of our savior are open and rejoice to heal us. The sweet, gracious hands of our mother are ready and diligent about us. In spite of the papal schism, corruption, and scandals occurring in the medieval church, Julian had a strong sense that the true church is not those who bring disgrace upon it, but Christ himself. By taking refuge in the grace of God that comes to us in a multitude of ways, especially in the celebration of Eucharist, we are healed and reunited in community to the mystical body of Christ. In every situation, Christ, our mother and our nurse, “has nothing else to do but to attend to the salvation of her child. It is his office to save us, it is his honor to do it, and it is his will that we know it.” All our Savior asks for in return is that “we love him sweetly and trust in him meekly and mightily.” Indeed, in the Thirteenth Revelation, when Christ showed Julian a glimpse of human brokenness, she understood that even in our terrible failures, Christ never ceases to keep us “full sekerly.” Then, in the Fourteenth Revelation, she realized this is because Christ is our mother. He cares for and protects his children no matter what ditch we fall into, and he lifts us out of our degradation by the sheer force of his love. Indeed, this is how Christ saves—by so completely knitting and oneing us to himself that we become who we were originally created to be: the image and likeness of God. And from this sweet, beautiful working he shall never cease nor stop, until all his dearworthy children are born and brought forth. And that he shewed when he gave the under- standing of the ghostly thirst: that is, the love-longing that shall last till domesday. And I understood no higher stature in this life than childhood, in feebleness and failing of might and of intellect, until the time that our gracious mother has brought us up to our father’s bliss. And there shall it truly be made known to us, his meaning in the sweet words where he says: “Alle shalle be wele, and thou shalt see it thyself that alle manner of thing shalle be wele.” PLEASE NOTE: Excerpts and translations from the Middle English above are from An Explorer’s Guide to Julian of Norwich (InterVarsity Academic Press, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. Available from the Publisher and Amazon worldwide: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0830850880?
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Julian of Norwich was only too familiar with physical pain. She suffered for a week in bed in excruciating pain from an unnamed illness and became paralyzed from the waist down. She longed for release to go to heaven; yet she also wanted to live in order to love and serve the Lord longer here on earth: It was because I would have lived to have loved God better and for a longer time, that I might, by the grace of that living, have more knowing and loving of God in the bliss of heaven. For it seemed to me that all that time that I had lived here so little and so short a time in comparison with that endless bliss. I thought: “Good lord, may my living no longer be to thy worship?” And I understood in my reason and by the feeling of my pains that I should die, and I assented fully with all the will of my heart to be at God’s will.
Julian lay awake all through the seventh night because she couldn’t sleep with the intense level of pain. After this the other part of my body began to die, as to my feeling. My hands fell down on either side, and also for lack of power my head settled down on one side. The most pain that I felt was shortness of breath and failing of life. Then I thought truly to have been at the point of death. She believed that during the process of dying, fiends lay in wait to tempt the soul to sin mortally and then drag it down into hell. She knew she needed to be on her guard, alert, awake, praying and surrendering to God’s will constantly. And in this moment, suddenly all my pain was taken away from me and I was completely whole, and especially in the upper part of my body, as ever I was before or after. I marveled at this change, for it seemed to me that it was a private working of God, and not of nature. But the physical healing did not bring spiritual peace, what she describes as “full ease,” to her. Julian still did not think she would live. In fact, the sudden easing of all her pain and immobility felt like a bitter disappointment. After having suffered so much, her heart longed to be delivered from the trials of this world forever. She was ready to die. And suddenly it came to my mind that I should desire the second wound of our lord’s gift and of his grace: that he would fill my body with the mind and feeling of his blessed passion, as I had prayed before. For I would that his pains were my pains, with compassion and afterward longing for God. Thus I thought I might, with his grace, have his wounds that I had desired before. . . . With him I desired to suffer, living in my mortal body, as God would give me grace. It was precisely then that all her pains disappeared and Julian saw the body of Christ on the crucifix before her appear alive and bleeding profusely. And so began her Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love, during which time she felt no pains but Christ’s pains. And these she experienced very deeply. Julian also witnessed Christ's transformation of suffering on the cross: And just in that same time that it seemed to me, by all appearances, that his life might no longer last, and the showing of the end must needs be near—suddenly, as I beheld the same cross, his face changed into a joyful expression. The changing of his blissful expression changed mine, and I was as glad and merry as it was possible to be. Then our Lord brought this merrily to mind: “Where is now any point of thy pain or of thy grief?” And I was completely merry. What an instantaneous transformation of pain into glorious joy! Indeed, Julian saw a vision of the Resurrected Christ on the cross. So many of us have suffered from acute or chronic pain at some point in our lives. Physical pain and the resultant sleep-deprivation, surgeries and their long aftermath, as well as a life-threatening illness have the power to pull the mind down into a dark and dangerous place. We enter a dark tunnel and cannot see the light. We cannot sense divine presence in the pain. Sometimes we feel abandoned by God to our pain, even with God’s love being revealed in all those who care for us. We are convinced we must face the pain alone, hour after hour, day and night. We may feel we will suffer like this for the rest of our lives. And perhaps we will. We may question if we’re being purified. And perhaps we are. We may ask why we cannot feel God’s love encircling and holding us in our pain, why we can’t focus our minds to meditate or pray, except to cry out for help in the words of a psalm or to finger a rosary in desperation. Sometimes, we can only question: “Lord, how do I get out of this pain?’ This can be a dangerous time. Extreme pain and exhaustion can lead us to question God’s love and constant protection. We may be plagued with doubts at the very moment we need so desperately to believe. These are the demons that we must be on our guard against, as Julian was. Teilhard de Chardin prayed: O God grant that I may understand that it is You (providing only my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fibres of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within Yourself.* But when we are in the thrall of pain we cannot experience that hidden process. All we can do is beg for strength to bear it, for release, and for some sign of divine presence. Because that is the worst pain: to feel that the suffering of pain is separating us from divine love. But must we feel separated? At some point, we may begin to desire, like Julian, that our splinter of pain be united to Christ’s vast suffering on the cross that draws in the pain of the entire world. We may join him there through our pain and begin to experience his pain more deeply within ourselves. We may offer our pain for all those throughout the world who suffer pain of any kind. And then we may begin to feel our pain has a purpose: to unite us more deeply to Christ’s own love and compassion for all who suffer. In the Spirit of Christ, we may gently breathe in the suffering of others as best we can and allow Christ to suffuse that terrible pain with his own divine light; and then we may gently breathe out Christ’s own light, and love, and healing to all who suffer, including ourselves. Hard as it may be, then we may be able to surrender, like Julian – not to the pain, but to whatever work the Lord wants to do in us through our suffering for the sake of others: Be it done unto me according to they will. In the Parable of the Lord and the Servant, Julian described a servant who ran off eagerly to do the will of his master and fell into a ditch, where he suffered great misery: And in all this, the most misfortune that I saw him in was his lack of comfort. For he could not turn his face to look up on his loving lord, who was very near to him, in whom is complete comfort. But like a man that was full feeble and unwise at the time, he concentrated on his feelings and enduring in woe. In which woe he suffered seven great pains. Julian observed that the servant was trapped in the narrow ditch, face down in the muck, in great pain and unable to turn over. He could not even raise his head to look up and see that the Lord was standing over him, ready to give him all the comfort he needed. The servant, thinking he was all alone, became weaker from his pains and emotionally distraught over all he had to suffer. He focused on his negative feelings and on how he was going to last through his agony. Julian identified seven pains that grieved him most severely. The first was the severe physical bruising he suffered from the actual fall, which caused him great injury all over his body. The second was the sheer heaviness and clumsiness of his body lying in the ditch, as if dead, unable to escape from the mud and stench and offal. The third was the terrible weakness, both physical and emotional, that followed on these two. The fourth was that he became so confused and blind in his reasoning powers and so stunned in his thinking, that he had “almost,” writes Julian, “forgotten his own love” for his Lord. The fifth was that he was unable to rise from his pit of agony. The sixth was the most excruciating pain of all: that he was convinced he lay in this pitiful condition all alone, with no one to come to his aid and to comfort him. . . . The seventh pain was that the ditch in which he lay “was a long, hard, and grievous” place in which to be trapped. The ditch was so tight and narrow that he could not budge. It was a terrible confinement. Indeed, these seven pains also describe Julian’s own pain when she felt trapped in physical suffering, paralyzed, unable to breathe, and thought she was dying. They may also describe our own experience of pain. We, too, sometimes feel trapped by physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual pain. We, too, forget how much we love and are loved by our Lord. But if we surrender to the divine working within us – even in the darkest night of bodily and mental pain -- and if we make blind acts of faith that Christ IS with us in our pain, then the same pains that drag us down can lift us up. Eventually, we may experience a sense of Christ's presence in our pain. This is what happened to Julian. It was in her own total surrender to her pain that she became able to envision Christ’s pain as well as his glorious transformation of pain in resurrection. May Julian help us to do so, too! NOTE: Excerpts above and translations from the Middle English are from my book, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books. 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf *Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, (Harper & Brothers, NY:1960), 62. “And in this [sight], he showed a little thing the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand as it seemed to me, and it was as round as any ball. I looked therein with the eye of my understanding, and thought: “What may this be?” And it was answered generally thus: “It is all that is made.” I marveled how it might last, for it seemed to me it might suddenly have fallen into nought for its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: “It lasteth and ever shall, because God loveth it. And so hath all things being by the love of God.”
In the First Revelation, Julian is suddenly shown, through an imaginative vision, a perfectly round hazelnut lying in the palm of her hand. How many times she had held, cracked, and eaten raw or roasted hazelnuts, ground them with a mortar and pestle to make a paste or sauce, pressed them to produce flavorful hazelnut oil, followed a recipe calling for a quantity of butter or lard “the size of a hazelnut,” or saved one half of the nut covering to use as a makeshift measuring spoon for salt and spices. The uses of hazelnuts were so many and frequent in fourteenth century Norwich, the trees on which they grew so ubiquitous throughout the countryside that one would pick the hazelnuts up off the ground as one walked among the hedgerows between fields. Hazel tree branches were used to make wattle and daub homes, farm fencing, even strong but flexible bows for arrows. In fact, the hazelnut had been around so long (since 7000 BCE, during the Mesolithic Period) and had become so commonplace, so utterly ordinary, that Julian did not understand what the import of its imaginary presence in her palm could possibly mean. She looks more deeply with the inner eye of her understanding and asks the first of many questions in her text: “What may this be?” She makes very clear that she was answered not specifically from the Lord’s mouth but in a general way, through an illumination given directly to her mind. The response was short, direct, precise: “It is all that is made.” The moment is stunning in its simplicity and grandeur. Julian realizes in a flash how precious the little nut is, simply because it exists, and, as such, it encapsulates “all that is made.” But how could it be “all that is made” if it is so small and so innocuous? Why, it could so easily fall into “nought,” or complete nothingness, because of its very littleness, disintegrate into the earth unnoticed, as Julian had seen so many hazelnut casings turn to compost in the garden. It is as if Julian’s inner eye became a floating telescope, zooming out to view infinite space, revealing the minuteness of planet Earth in the immensity of the cosmos. What power allows such a tiny thing to exist at all and cares enough to sustain it in existence? She is approaching the ultimate metaphysical question: How is there anything at all? Again, she is answered not by externally spoken words but by a voice within: “It lasteth, and ever shall, because God loveth it.” And in the same way do all things exist or “have being” from moment to moment, solely because of the love of God. Some people, as they lie on their deathbeds, see their lives pass before them in a flash. Julian sees all creation enclosed in the symbol of a little hazelnut, as miniscule in God’s eye as a tiny round ball floating in space. Nevertheless, the smallness does not mean the hazelnut is any less loved by God for being so little and so ordinary. It is loved equally with suns and moons and stars, all the wonders of nature, and the uniqueness of human beings. In the course of future Revelations, Julian will experience again and again this ever-present, all-pervasive reality of love that alone sustains creation. Rather, creation is nothing else but the expression of Divine Love. Here Julian is given a glimpse into a universe upheld not by physical matter, whether in microcosm or macrocosm, but by the fact of the all-pervasive love of God. Julian understands three properties of the hazelnut. Not its hardiness, usefulness, and tastiness. Rather, “the first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, the third is that God protects it.” This trinity of hazelnut attributes strikes her mind with great clarity. Still, she is not sure what the meaning of its sudden appearance in her imagination could be, here and now, for her: “But what is that to me?” she asks, in internal dialogue. The answer comes immediately: “Truly, the maker, the protector, the lover.” Consideration of the humble hazelnut raises Julian’s mind once again to the contemplation of Trinity as creator, protector, and eternal lover revealing itself not only in the reality of Jesus Christ, but in and through everything that is made. Now, in a rush of ardor, Julian expresses her life’s longing for God. She laments that until she is “substantially oned,” that is, united to God in the very ground of her being, with nothing created interposing itself between herself and God, she cannot have any rest or peace. She feels she must become “fastened” (in her heart) to Christ on the cross, so that there is nothing standing between her and him. This may seem a startling conclusion. Is Julian suddenly denying the holiness and goodness of the “hazelnut,” which she has just understood represents all of creation? How could she? She has seen that it is created, protected, and loved in being by God. But she knows that it is still not God, nor can it ever be. And no matter how good and true and beautiful creation appears, it can never satisfy the soul’s yearning to be “oned” with the One by whom all is created. No creature can ever become God for her. She cannot substitute a hazelnut for a heaven. Julian is echoing the thought of St. Augustine here: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” This was a common theme in medieval literature. Julian knows only too well that we continually grasp at what we can see, hear, taste, touch, and hold in the palm of our hands. Too often, what we seek after with such inveterate determination distracts us from the love and service of God, our ultimate destiny. Our ever increasing earthly needs and goals can mount up like a thick wall between the soul and its Creator. We think we are striving after what will make us happy until we either get it and realize it cannot satisfy our fundamental longing, or we lose it and start craving something else. Yet somehow, even though we know our wants always exceed our needs, we start the process over and over again. “Of this each man and woman needs to have knowing who desires to live contemplatively, that he desires to nought all things that are made in order to have the love of God that is unmade. For this is the cause why they who are occupied willfully in earthly business, and evermore seek worldly well being, are not completely at ease in heart and in soul: for they love and seek here rest in this thing [the hazelnut] that is so little, where no rest is within, and know not God, who is all mighty, all wise, and all good. For he is true rest.” Julian discerns that all creation, even in its most awesome beauty, is only the size of a hazelnut in the sight of God. She realizes that the very “littleness” of the hazelnut (i.e., the world) shows us it is necessary to nought everything that is made “in order to have the love of God that is unmade.” Only God is great enough to satisfy our soul’s deepest desire. What does Julian mean by this word, nought? The word was not known before the twelfth century, when it meant, literally, “nothing.” In medieval mystical literature, noughting implied the deliberate letting go of attachment to self, as well as the renunciation of worldly goods and concerns, in order to attain a deeper spiritual union with the divine. Noughting was the essential way of purgation, before illumination and spiritual union with God could be achieved. . . . The sense in which Julian uses the word implies a self-denial, a turning away from human selfishness and its obsession with finite, ever-changing, always-decaying goods that can distract the soul from seeking the infinite, unchangeable, and everlasting good. In modern terms, we could say noughting involves a negation of self-centeredness in order to become more focused on the “other,” an absolutely necessary component of learning to love. For Julian, it means letting go of the unnecessary in order to focus on the one thing needful (Lk 10:42). Here, Julian tells the reader that God “wills” to be known, and “liketh that we rest ourselves in him” (5:24–25.141). Julian will use this intimate term, “liketh” (meaning “enjoys”), often in her text. It is her way of conveying the certainty she feels that God was speaking to her mind directly, telling her what to impart to her evencristens. She adds that the Lord derives very great pleasure from an innocent soul that comes to him “nakedly, plainly, and homely.” This is the kind of noughting Julian means: dropping every distraction and becoming a little child again, rushing into the arms of its loving parent and resting there: “for this is the natural yearning of the soul by the touching of the holy ghost, as by the understanding that I have in this shewing.” Inspired by this meditation, Julian pours out all her heart’s longing in prayer: “God, of thy goodness give me thyself. For thou art enough to me, and I may ask nothing that is less that may be full worship to thee. And if I ask anything that is less, ever will I be wanting. But only in thee do I have all.” Julian is sure that this petition is most comforting to the soul and completely in union with the will of Our Lord. She also tells us that the ultimate gift of God’s goodness, for which she prays, extends to all his creatures and all his holy works, and will continually surpass itself for eternity. Then, again in words reminiscent of St. Augustine’s, she writes: “For he is eternity, and he has made us only for himself and restored us by his precious passion, and ever protects us in his blessed love. And all this is of his goodness.” Thus in noughting herself, Julian anticipates receiving, in exchange, the boundlessness of God. In these deeply troubled times of anxiety and sorrow, when we are overcome by fear and doubt, may Julian’s prayer become our own daily prayer. In letting go of all that plagues us, may we, too, drop into the boundless love of God: our creator, protector, and eternal lover. NOTE: Excerpts above and translations from the Middle English are from my book, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books. 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf In the Fourteenth Revelation, Julian writes:
And thus I understood that man’s soul is made of nothing. That is to say, it is created, but of nothing that is made, as thus: when God would make man’s body, he took the slime of the earth, which is a matter mixed and gathered from all bodily things, and thereof he made man’s body. But to the making of man’s soul he would take nothing at all, but made it. And thus is the [created] nature rightfully made united to the maker who is essential nature uncreated, that is God. And therefore it is that there may nor shall be truly nothing at all between God and man’s soul. What is the soul that God creates? According to the Genesis story of creation, God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Gn 1:26). Since God has no body, the image and the likeness must be a spiritual reality created out of nothing. The idea of a soul connects the human inseparably to the divine, since it is precisely the soul that is made in the image and likeness of God. Since nothing at all can exist between God and the soul, Julian sees that, in the boundless love of God, the human soul is led and protected, from the moment of its creation, “and never shall be lost.” And this is the essential meaning of the extended Fourteenth Revelation. “For he wills that we know that our soul is a life; which life, of his goodness and his grace, shall last in heaven without end, loving him, thanking him, praising him.” And just as the soul will live forever, so “we were treasured in God and hidden, known and loved from without beginning.” Here we sense that the scriptural parable of the treasure hidden in a field for which a man will sell everything he owns in order to buy that field is suddenly reversed. We are the “treasure” hidden in the ground of God’s love from all eternity. We are the food the Lord desires above all things. We are the reason God will sacrifice his only begotten Son to “buy back” our souls from the grip of evil. Wherefore, he wills that we know that the noblest thing that he ever made is mankind, and the fullest substance and the highest virtue is the blessed soul of Christ. And furthermore, he wills we know that this dearworthy soul was preciously knit to him in its making. Which knot is so subtle and so mighty that it is oned into God, in which oneing it is made endlessly holy. Furthermore, he wills we know that all the souls that shall be saved in heaven without end are knit in this knot, and oned in this oneing, and made holy in this holiness. Julian, like every theologian, struggled to find words worthy of characterizing the nature of Christ’s human soul. She chose the word, “substance,” to describe that aspect of Christ’s soul that was most closely knit to God “in its making.” Substance, as adopted from Aristotelian metaphysics by St. Thomas Aquinas, defines “what a thing is” in its own right, that is, its nature, such as a man, a dog, a tree, a rock. Substance is distinguished from the accidents of nature that can only exist in something else, such as quantity, quality, relation, time, place, and so forth. Julian was not a trained philosopher, but that does not mean she did not learn from university clerics who were. While we may think of substance as being something solid and “substantial,” the word in medieval times carried no intrinsic connection with physical mass having matter, weight, dimension, extension, mobility. It was a metaphysical concept. Julian uses substance to mean non-material essence: that which makes something to be what it is. Since Christ, as Man, is the most perfect of all human beings, Julian extols his human soul as the “fullest substance and the highest virtue.” Moreover, Christ’s human substance was knit so intricately and so firmly into Divine Essence that it was made eternally holy. Then Julian makes a stunning leap: she extends this understanding of Christ’s substance to include all of sanctified humanity. “All the souls that shall be saved in heaven without end are knitted in this knot, and oned in this oneing and made holy in this holiness.” We are partakers in Christ’s holy human substance. It is our essential nature as well. It is the primal definition of our being. The divine act of creation makes every one of us exist and sustains us in existence. Without this unceasing creativity, we simply would not be at all. And because our human substance is designed on the pattern of Divine Reality, it is unstained by sin. “Substance” is Julian’s term for what we are created to be: the perfect image and likeness of God, according to the prototype of Jesus Christ. Julian goes even further. She dares to suggest that because of God’s endless love for humanity, God does not make any distinction between “the blessed soul of Christ and the least soul that shall be saved.” For it is very easy to believe and trust that the wonning [home] of the blessed soul of Christ is very high in the glorious godhead. And truly, as I understood in our lord’s meaning, where the blessed soul of Christ is, there is the substance of all the souls that shall be saved by Christ. Highly ought we to enjoy that God wonneth [lives] in our soul, and much more highly ought we to enjoy that our soul wonneth in God. Julian is certain that just as Christ’s soul dwells high in the eternal Godhead, so every soul that is saved dwells there within him. (She uses the lovely Middle English word, wonneth, which implies the intimacy of dwelling in a home.) She attests that it is an exalted understanding to see and know mystically that the Creator lives in the soul. But it is an even more exalted understanding to see and know that the created soul, in its very home. By this substantial union with Christ in God, “we are what we are.” And in this lies the unfathomable dignity of human personhood. Julian attempts to describe this indwelling of God and the soul: And I saw no difference between God and our substance, but as it were all God. And yet my understanding accepted that our substance is in God; that is to say, that God is God and our substance is a creature in God. While Julian is stretching the identity of God and the soul to the nth degree, she is extremely careful not to fall into a nondualist notion that God and the soul are the same substance without any distinction; that is, all one soul. Julian clearly distinguishes between God’s uncreated substance (Divine Essence) and the human soul’s created substance (human essence). She is mindful never to gloss over this crucial theological distinction, even in a mystical sense. Nonetheless, Julian admits that in her deep state of contemplation it was difficult for her to differentiate between God and the human soul. For the almighty truth of the trinity is our father, for he made us and keeps us in himself. And the deep wisdom of the trinity is our mother, in whom we are all enclosed. And the high goodness of the trinity is our lord, and in him we are enclosed and he in us. We are enclosed in the father, and we are enclosed in the son, and we are enclosed in the holy ghost. And the father is enclosed in us, the son is enclosed in us, and the holy ghost is enclosed in us: all might, all wisdom, and all goodness; one God, one lord. The sheer majesty of Julian’s rhythmic phrases conveys her conviction that this sublime mutual indwelling is real. She became so absorbed in God that she experienced the truth of the Trinity as our own Father; the wisdom of the Trinity as our own Mother (an extraordinary statement that presages her theological reflections on the Motherhood of God); and the goodness of the Trinity as the Lord himself, in whom “we are enclosed and he in us.” She stresses again and again how intimately “enclosed” we are within Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This echoes her earlier experience of Christ as “our clothing, that for love wraps us and winds about us, embraces us and wholly encloses us, hanging about us for tender love, that he may never leave us.” And, at the same time, she bears witness that Trinity is “enclosed” within us. We carry the divine imprint of Trinity within our souls. Christ himself said to his disciples: “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me” (Jn 15:4). For Julian, this oneing of God and the soul is never indistinguishable identification. She is not the type of mystic who seeks to dissolve differences between Creator and created. Nevertheless, for Julian, this union of God and the soul is a mystical intimacy beyond description. NOTE: Excerpts above and translations from the Middle English are from my book, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books. 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf As a result of the Thirteenth Revelation, Julian of Norwich understood that:
There is a deed which the blissful trinity shall do in the last day, as to my sight. And what the deed shall be and how it shall be done, is unknown by all creatures who are beneath Christ, and shall be till it shall be done. The goodness and the love of our lord God wills that we know that it shall be. And his might and his wisdom, by the same love, will conceal and hide it from us, what it shall be and how it shall be done. And the reason why he wills we know it thus is because he wills we be the more eased in our soul and at peace in love, leaving the beholding of all tempestes [agitations and tumults] that might prevent us from truly rejoicing in him. This is the great deed ordained by our lord God from without beginning, reassured and hidden in his blessed breast, known only to himself, by which deed he shall make alle thing wele. For as truly as the blessed trinity made alle thing of nought, right so the same blessed trinity shalle make wele alle that is not wele. The monumental Revelation that Julian received concerning the Great Deed does not explicitly answer her questions (or ours) about why evil was allowed to come into the world, nor how sin is behovely [necessary], nor how evil will finally be overcome. This crucial section does not even appear in the Short Text. Yet it became paramount in Julian’s soteriology (her understanding of how God saves) over the course of several decades of contemplation on the Thirteenth Revelation. Julian specifies that the Great Deed “is unknown by all creatures who are beneath Christ.” The Blessed Virgin does not know, nor do the angels and saints know, what the Great Deed will be and how it will be done. Yet Julian is sure that Christ wants everyone to know that there will be such a deed that will finally make all things well. In his trinitarian might, wisdom, and love, Christ does not wish us to speculate about what it is and how it will be accomplished because he does not want us consumed by torturous imaginings “that might prevent us from truly rejoicing in him.” Simply receiving the Revelation that there will be a Great Deed should give sufficient comfort to our souls and enable us to be at peace and live in love. The Great Deed has been ordained “from without beginning,” and while we know by faith that Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection make all things well ultimately, it seems Julian is implying another divine action here. It has been suggested that she might be anticipating a decree of universal salvation and the emptying out of hell. But Julian in no way hints at or dares to imply this possibility, much as we might like to read such an interpretation into her text. On the contrary, she does not speculate at all and perhaps neither should we. Suffice it to say that Julian compares the Great Deed with the act of creation itself: as the Trinity creates all things from nothing, so the Trinity “shalle make wele alle that is not wele.” The key to Julian’s ongoing explanation is that the Lord showed her two separate realities. The one, human reality, we experience mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually every day, with both its joys and its sufferings, its blessings and its curses. This reality is constantly in flux, ever-changing from moment to moment for good or for ill. Therefore, it is always fraught with uncertainty, hidden dangers, the pain of dissolution. Nothing lasts. In this reality, we think and feel and make countless choices, some right, some wrong. We try to create safe havens of light and peace and love, but at the same time we are tossed about by conflicts, within and without, over which we have no control. This is what we call our “life.” But it is only one way of existing. This earthly life is not the whole of reality. And it is continually darkened by our deep ignorance about the other Divine Reality. Divine Reality is God’s own life in trinitarian bliss. When we are wrenched away from what we call our “life” and resurrected as members of Christ’s Mystical Body, our minds will become illuminated through and through with God’s life. Then we will be able to see and experience the ever-new creation as it pours forth from the Word of God in perfect wisdom and love. Then it will be made clear what we cannot possibly fathom now: how the resurrection (Christ’s, and ours-to-come in Christ) has changed everything. Then we will truly have “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16, cf. Phil 2:5) to be able to witness the Great Deed, whatever it will be, and to see that “alle manner of thing shalle be wele.” Once our minds and hearts are completely transformed and incorporated into Christ’s own mind and heart, we will be able to rest in contemplation of the central mystery of the Trinity. This alone is eternal happiness. Yet even now our efforts to persevere in hope can enlighten our minds and reassure our hearts. Faith can enable us to believe that this, even this, illness or tragedy -- or pandemic or war -- will be transformed by Christ. Even now Divine Reality is constantly impinging on human reality through the outpouring of grace, like shafts of sunlight reaching deep into the thick, dark forest of our minds. During her Revelations and in the years-to-come of contemplation, Julian glimpsed this Divine Reality and gained profound insights concerning its nature. But she could not rest in the promise Christ gave her concerning this Reality until she had first allowed him to calm the raging tempestes of doubts and terrors that plagued her very human soul. As we approach Pentecost Sunday, let us ask the Holy Spirit to descend into our hearts and teach us how to dwell more peacefully and contemplatively in Divine Reality, trusting that the Creator who made all things well “in the beginning” will make all things well “in the end.” NOTE: Excerpts above and translations from the Middle English are from my book, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books. 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf May 1st is the Feast Day of Mary, Christ’s mother and mother of us all. Let us consider how Mary was revealed to Julian in her Revelations.
In the very First Revelation, Christ brings “our lady Saint Mary” to Julian’s understanding. She does not see Mary in the flesh as she does Christ, but “ghostly, in bodily likeness.” This implies that Julian saw Mary appear suddenly and distinctly in her imagination, without any effort on Julian’s part to conjure her. Mary appeared as a young girl, not much older than a child, small and meek and in the position of prayer that she had taken at the time of her conception of the Savior. (It was a common medieval belief that at the annunciation, Mary was fifteen years old.) Julian was granted a glimpse into the beauty of Mary’s soul and the holy awe in which she contemplated God: Also God showed me in part the wisdom and truth of her soul, wherein I understood the reverent beholding in which she beheld her God, that is, her maker, marveling with great reverence that he would be born of her who was a simple creature of his making. For this was her marveling: that he who was her maker would be born of her who was made. And this wisdom and truth, knowing the greatness of her maker and the littleness of herself that is made, made her say so meekly to Gabriel: “Lo me here, God’s handmaiden.” In this meditation, Julian is keenly aware that Mary is, like herself, “a simple creature,” uneducated, and without any earthly nobility. Yet Julian understands truly that Mary is more worthy than all other creatures God has made, because she was conceived without sin. All other creatures are therefore below her. And above her is “nothing that is made but the blessed manhood of Christ, as to my sight." In the Eighth Revelation, during her visionary experiences of Christ’s languishing on the cross, instinctively, Julian identifies with the suffering of Mary. Julian knows from her own experience that when a child suffers, the mother suffers: For Christ and she were so oned [united] in love that the greatness of her love was the cause of the magnitude of her pain. For in this I saw the essence of natural love, increased by grace, that his creatures have for him, which natural love was most fulsomely shown in his sweet mother, overpassing [all others]. For as much as she loved him more than all others, her pain surpassed all others. For ever the higher, the mightier, the sweeter that the love is, the more sorrow it is to the lover to see that body in pain that he loved. And so all his disciples and all his true lovers suffered pains more than their own bodily dying. For I am seker, by my own feeling, that the least of them loved him so far above themselves that it surpasses all that I can say. No one who has ever loved and watched the loved one die can fail to identify with Julian’s words. What she describes is so very human, so touching in its expression, so easily understood. Mary loved Christ more than did anyone else on earth. He was her son, flesh of her flesh, love of her life. She was oned with him, both in body and in spirit. Hence, she suffered watching him suffer. And those who stood at the foot of the cross, Christ’s “true lovers,” also suffered more than those who were not there to see him die. Except for the disciple John, and possibly some men among those who “stood at a distance, watching these things” (Lk 23:49), the onlookers specifically recorded by the four evangelists as being present at the crucifixion were all women. Then in the Eleventh Revelation, Julian is invited by Christ to see Mary: And with this same expression of mirth and joy, our good lord looked down on the right side, and brought to my mind where our lady stood at the time of his passion, and said: “Wilt thou see her?” And in this sweet word, it was as if he had said: “I know well that thou wouldst see my blessed mother, for after myself she is the highest joy that I might shew thee, and the most pleasure and worship to me. And she is most desired to be seen of all my blessed creatures.” Julian’s great devotion to Mary is apparent here, as her heart longs to see Christ’s mother at the foot of the cross. And Christ is well aware that Julian, like “all my blessed creatures,” longs to see her. Saint Mary was considered to be the most compassionate and powerful mediatrix between sinful human beings and her son. Julian would have sought her intercession in every crisis or moment of need. And for the marvelous, high, and special love that he hath for this sweet maiden, his blessed mother, our lady Saint Mary, he showed her highly rejoicing, which is the meaning of this sweet word, as if he had said: “Wilt thou see how much I love her, that thou might rejoice with me in the love that I have in her and she in me?” Now, in an imaginative vision, Julian sees Mary rejoicing in eternal bliss with her Son, delighting in his love and he in hers. She understands that the words the Lord spoke to her were intended “in love to all mankind that shall be saved, as it were all to one person.” It was as if he had said to Julian and to everyone: “Wilt thou see in her how thou art loved? For thy love I have made her so exalted, so noble, so worthy. And this pleases me, and I want it to please thee.” In the love Christ has for Mary, Julian recognizes how much Christ loves each and every human being. In fact, Christ has made Mary so highly glorified, honored, and worthy in order to be an inspiration for all women and men. He has raised her body into glory to be with his own. He has crowned her queen of heaven and earth. She gives the Lord the greatest worship and pleasure and he wants everyone to take great pleasure in her, too. Even though Julian did not see Mary in a "bodily sight" (as she saw Christ on the cross), Julian was led to contemplate Mary in “the virtues of her blessed soul—her truth, her wisdom, her charity,” whereby Julian might learn to know herself better and more reverently fear and serve God. Julian is sure that Christ wills it to be known that everyone who “likes” (an even more intimate medieval form of the word “love”) and delights in him must also truly “like” Mary, with all the connotations of delighting in everything about her. Julian realizes that this very “liking,” this most familiar manner of loving, is the purest form of “bodily likeness” that she could possibly have experienced. Julian was deeply touched that Christ had confided to her his own love for Mary as a young maiden, as a suffering mother, and now, as an exalted and noble lady in heaven. In revealing to Julian his great love for Mary, by extension Christ was showing, in yet another way, his great love for Julian. And for each one of us. Let us rejoice and give thanks, especially during this month of May, that we have in Mary a mother who shares our joys and hopes and who understands all our sufferings and fears . . . a mother who constantly reassures us that her Son has triumphed over sorrow and evil, and that he will make “all things well.” Mary is our own mother who intercedes in heaven and on earth for us at every moment of our lives. NOTE: Excerpts above and translations from the Middle English are from my book, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books. 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf As we approach Good Friday, let us reflect on the extraordinary visions of Christ on the cross described by Julian of Norwich in her Revelations of Divine Love. Watching Christ die over many hours, Julian experiences his agony in her own body, with true compassion for her savior. She literally suffers with him. Julian declares that “in all this time of Christ’s presence, I felt no pain but for Christ’s pain.” It must have been a great deal worse than anything she had ever experienced in her life, even during her own seven days of near-dying.
Julian becomes acutely conscious that all the pain of her life -- and of everyone’s life -- is united with the pain of Christ on the cross. And this is because, in becoming human, Christ took on all manner of pain as his own (Heb 2:9–18). Therefore, “when he was in pain, we were in pain” with him. She might have added: “When we were in pain, he was in pain.” St. Paul even dared to write that “in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col 1:24). Julian also realizes that not only “all his true lovers,” but “all creatures” shared in the agony of Christ’s dying. This inextricable connection between the inner life of human beings and the state of the natural world had long been perceived. St. Paul was convinced that the physical earth as well as its creatures are involved in the great struggle of salvation: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:22–23). Julian believes that all earth’s creatures naturally recognized the Lord, “in whom all their virtues stand.” Thus when the Lord died, it behooved creatures out of kindness to die with him, “in as much as they might, for sorrow of his pains.” She certainly understood that, when Christ took on all flesh in himself and “failed,” his entire creation failed with him, animals as well as humans, out of “sorrow for his pains.” Even “they who knew him not suffered for failing of all manner of comfort.” And here Julian bears witness to a profound truth: that the fates of humankind and the entire creation are intimately connected. Julian admits that the torture of seeing and feeling Christ’s pains, in some measure, made her want to look away from the cross on which she had been focused since the First Revelation. She longed to fly up to heaven (she had already enjoyed a mystical vision of the heavenly banquet). She wanted to have all this suffering be finished (as we do, too). “In this time I would have looked from the cross, and I dared not, for I knew well that as long as I beheld the cross, I was seker and safe. Therefore, I would not assent to put my soul in peril, for beside the cross was no sekernesse, only ugliness of fiends.” She was convinced that only by keeping her eyes focused on the crucifixion, like the “other women” at the foot of the cross, would there be security and safety from her inner demons: “For I had rather have been in that pain till domesday, than have come to heaven otherwise than by him. For I know well that he that bound me so sorely, he should unbind me when he would. Thus was I taught to choose Jesus for my heaven, whom I saw only in pain at that time. I wanted no other heaven than Jesus, who shall be my bliss when I come there. And this has ever been a comfort to me, that I chose Jesus to be my heaven, by his grace, in all this time of passion and sorrow. And that has been a teaching to me, that I should evermore do so, to choose Jesus only for my heaven in wele and in woe.” Julian does not want to desert Christ and leave him alone, as the disciples did, by looking away from the harshness of his sufferings, even for a single moment. She desires no heavenly vision that is without Jesus and, paradoxically, to be with Jesus, even in his terrible suffering on earth, becomes heaven for her. In Julian’s mind, this is a major turning point. Earlier, she had longed to be out of her own suffering and go quickly to heaven. Now she understands that there is no way to reach that exalted place except through a share in the sufferings of Christ and through the transformation of the soul that this compassion and surrender effects. By bearing her own suffering in faith and patience, Julian realizes she will finally be like him who “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). And by electing to remain focused on the suffering Christ, she also chooses to go on living on earth, no matter how painful, and uncertain, and long it might be, rather than giving in to the blessed release of death. By this emphatic decision “to choose Jesus for my heaven,” Julian also registers her willingness to stay with Mary and the “other women” at the foot of the cross on Calvary and with the evencristens beside her bed, fingering their rosary beads and praying on her behalf. If Christ wants her here, here she will stay. When he wants her to go, she will be willing to go. This choice releases something in Julian at which she had still been grasping, even in the self-noughting process of watching the passion unfold; namely, her great desire for heaven. She finds lasting comfort in the fact that she has been able, by the power of grace, to endure “all this time of passion and sorrow.” And she affirms that this was an important life teaching for her: “to choose Jesus only for my heaven in wele and in woe.” Julian continues to reflect on “the height and the nobility of the glorious godhead” of Jesus Christ and on “the preciousness and tenderness of the blissful body which are together oned.” She also considers how much human beings (like herself) are loath to undergo pain. But Christ was not. He was willing to suffer for the sins of every person ever created. And Christ saw and sorrowed for every person’s “desolation and anguish,” out of “kindness and love.” “Beholding all this by his grace,” Julian realizes that the love Christ has for souls was so strong that he willfully chose suffering “with great desire, and patiently suffered it with great joy.” This is an astounding insight that cuts through and completely transforms Julian’s personal pain at watching Christ suffer. She is convinced that any soul that is “touched by grace” in watching Christ’s passion shall see that his pain surpasses all human pains, that is, all those pains that “shall be turned into everlasting joy by virtue of Christ’s passion.” This Holy Week, may we not turn away from the cross of Christ. May we allow it to do its work in us of making Christ’s presence more real for us with every breath. May we cling to the love of God manifested in Christ on the cross and not succumb to the darkness of terror or despair because we know Christ is already – even now – turning our most desperate inner struggle, our darkest nights, into an emerging dawn of salvation. May we choose, like Julian, not to avoid or escape the process, however painful and slow it may be. May we wish only to be more intimately united to Christ as he is with us. And may we pray never, ever to abandon him at the foot of his cross. Or our own. Soon, in her Revelations, Julian will experience a glorious transformation of Christ’s sufferings into ecstatic joy. Every Calvary leads to the empty tomb and the glory of Resurrection. Alleluia! NOTE: Excerpts above and translations from the Middle English are from my book, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books. 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf As we approach Ash Wednesday and start another Lenten Season, we may ask: “What shall we do?” We may feel we have already endured a whole year of Lent – sacrificing peace of mind and body during a plague of sickness, fear, enforced isolation, economic uncertainty, and the loss of loved ones. We have been deprived of our freedom to go to work, to see our families, to give and receive affection, to socialize, to travel. What more is there to give up?
But Lent is not only about giving up. It’s about re-orienting the focus of our lives. It’s about “letting go” of so much we cling to for support (and that cannot satisfy) and “giving over” our entire selves to God. In the First Revelation, Julian of Norwich reflected on what she called “noughting” (that is, self-denial), not in a morbid sense, but in order to open the heart wide to receive the boundless love God wishes to pour into us. Of this each man and woman needs to have knowing who desires to live contemplatively, that [s]he desires to nought all things that are made in order to have the love of God that is unmade. For this is the reason why they who are occupied willfully in earthly business, and evermore seek worldly wellbeing, are not completely at ease in heart and in soul: for they love and seek here rest in this thing [like the hazelnut she saw in the palm of her hand] that is so little, where there is no rest within, and know not God, who is all mighty, all wise, and all good. For he is true rest. Julian discerns that all creation, even in its most awesome beauty, is only the size of a hazelnut in the sight of God. She realizes that the very “littleness” of the hazelnut (i.e., the world) shows us it is necessary to nought everything that is made “in order to have the love of God that is unmade.” Only God is great enough to satisfy our soul’s deepest desire. What does Julian mean by this word, nought? In medieval mystical literature, noughting implied the deliberate letting go of the attachment to self, as well as the renunciation of worldly goods and concerns, in order to attain a deeper spiritual union with the divine. Noughting was the essential way of purgation, before illumination and spiritual union with God could be achieved. The sense in which Julian uses the word implies a self-denial, a turning away from human selfishness and its obsession with finite, ever-changing, always-decaying goods that can distract the soul from seeking the infinite, unchangeable, and everlasting good. In modern terms, we could say noughting involves a negation of self-centeredness in order to become more focused on the “other,” an absolutely necessary component of learning to love. For Julian, it means letting go of the unnecessary in order to focus on the one thing necessary (Lk 10:42). Julian knew her bustling, materialistic, and competitive city of Norwich only too well. It is possible that much of that same restless activity had driven her own life, out of necessity. We must also consider that, at this point in her Revelations, Julian still believes she is about to die. She is lamenting that she has not done enough to know God in this life. Her mind is straining to try to figure out why her imagination perceived a hazelnut at this critical moment. What is its portent? Could it be to inspire her to hand over to God “all that is made,” all that she has ever loved in this life, as well as her own body and soul, before she dies? One thing she knows for sure: at the point of death, she cannot allow herself to be bound to earth by ties of attachment, or responsibility, even human love. She must dare to become noughted, utterly stripped of all she holds dear, like Christ on the cross. Julian’s tone, in writing about the essential noughting of the spiritual life, is never disparaging, but always gentle and encouraging. She tells the reader that God “wills” to be known, and “enjoys that we rest ourselves in him.” She adds that the Lord derives very great pleasure from an innocent soul that comes to him “nakedly, plainly, and homely [that is, intimately, as at home].” This is the kind of noughting Julian means: dropping every distraction and becoming a little child again, rushing into the arms of its loving parent and resting there: “for this is the natural yearning of the soul by the touching of the holy ghost, as by the understanding that I have in this shewing.” Inspired by this meditation, Julian pours out all her heart’s longing in prayer: God, of thy goodness give me thyself. For thou art enough to me, and I may ask nothing that is less that may be full worship to thee. And if I ask anything that is less, ever will I be wanting. But only in thee do I have all. Julian is sure that this petition is most comforting to the soul and completely in union with the will of Our Lord. She also tells us that the ultimate gift of God’s goodness, for which she prays, extends to all his creatures and all his holy works, and will continually surpass itself for eternity. Then she writes: “For he is eternity, and he has made us only for himself and restored us by his precious passion, and ever protects us in his blessed love. And all this is of his goodness.” In noughting herself, Julian anticipates receiving, in exchange, the boundless love of God. With Julian, let us consider noughting or “letting go” everything we cling to, clutch at, or count on for security or momentary comfort and dropping into the sublime care of God during this Lenten Season. If we dare to find “true rest” in the abyss of Divine Love, through daily contemplation and self-service, we will experience a Lent of fullness and peace—not “giving up” but “giving in” to whatever Divine Goodness wishes to accomplish in and through our lives. And then we may make Julian’s beautiful prayer our very own. NOTE: Excerpts above and translations from the Middle English are from my book, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books. 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf “Are the mystical writings of a fourteenth century laywoman relevant to our time?” In other words: “Why Julian now?”
Perhaps the best answer to this question is that in our age of uncertainty, inconceivable suffering, and seemingly perpetual violence, war, riots, and divisiveness (not unlike fourteenth-century Europe), Julian shows us the way toward contemplative peace of mind and heart. In our time of rampant racial prejudice and religious persecution, Julian inspires us to non-judgmental acceptance and universal compassion. In a world of a deadly pandemic and ecological disasters, Julian teaches us how to endure pain in patience and trust that Christ is working to transform every cross we carry into his own resurrected glory. In a generation of doubt, cynicism, and disbelief, Julian offers a radiant vision of faith and hope— not in ourselves, but in the Lord who created us, loves us, and will never, ever abandon us. Moreover, across six centuries, Julian’s voice speaks to us about love. She communicates personally, as if she were very much with us here and now. Even more than theological explanations, we all hunger for love. Our hearts yearn for someone we can trust absolutely—divine love that can never fail. Julian reveals this love because, like Mary Magdalene, she experienced it firsthand. Julian tells us about her mystical visions of Christ’s love on the cross and how that love totally transformed her life. She shows us how it can transform our lives, too. Unlike other medieval mystics (who may appear sometimes too extreme, too ascetic, or too intellectual for our postmodern taste), Julian comes across as a flesh and blood woman, thoroughly sympathetic to our human condition. And in heartfelt terms she expresses her profound awareness of God who became human like us, suffered, died, and was transformed into glory. Why is Julian a “Voice for Our Time”? I think because she is totally vulnerable and transparently honest, without any guile. She is “homely”; in medieval terms, that means down-to-earth, familiar, and easily accessible. She is keenly aware of her spiritual brokenness and longs to be healed. So do we. She experiences great suffering of body, mind, and soul. So do we. She has moments of doubt. So do we. She seeks answers to age-old questions. So do we. Then, at a critical turning point in her Revelations of Divine Love, she is overwhelmed by joy and “gramercy” (great thanks) for the graces she is receiving. We, too, are suddenly granted graces and filled to overflowing with gratitude. Sometimes, we even experience our own revelations of divine love. Again and again, Julian reassures each one of us that we are loved by God, unconditionally. In her writings, we hear Christ telling us, just as he told Julian: “I love you and you love me, and our love shall never be separated in two.” Indeed, Julian’s teachings have greatly endeared her to Christians and non-Christians alike. Everyone can relate to her as a spiritual mentor because we sense that, even though she lived and wrote six hundred years ago, Julian the mystic, the seeker, and the theologian is very much “a woman for all seasons.” Julian’s voice of prophetic hope, speaking to us from the fourteenth century, is one that we in the twenty-first century desperately need to hear. PLEASE NOTE: Excerpts above are from "An Explorer’s Guide to Julian of Norwich" (InterVarsity Academic Press, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. Available from the Publisher and Amazon worldwide: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0830850880? In the First Revelation, Julian of Norwich writes that Christ brought “our lady Saint Mary” to her understanding in a ghostly “bodily likeness.” This implies that Julian saw Mary appear suddenly and distinctly in her imagination, without any effort on Julian’s part to conjure her. Mary appeared young, not much older than a child, small and meek and in the position of prayer that she had taken at the time of her conception of the Savior. (It was a common medieval belief that at the annunciation, Mary was fifteen years old.) Julian was granted a glimpse into the beauty of Mary’s soul and the holy awe in which she contemplated God:
Also God showed me in part the wisdom and truth of her soul, wherein I understood the reverent beholding in which she beheld her God, that is, her maker, marveling with great reverence that he would be born of her who was a simple creature of his making. For this was her marveling: that he who was her maker would be born of her who was made. And this wisdom and truth, knowing the greatness of her maker and the littleness of herself that is made, made her say so meekly to Gabriel: "Lo me here, God’s handmaiden. In this meditation, Julian became keenly aware that Mary was, like herself, “a simple creature,” uneducated, and without any earthly nobility. Yet Julian understood truly that Mary is more worthy than all other creatures God has made, because she was conceived without sin. All other creatures are therefore below her. And above her is “nothing that is made but the blessed manhood of Christ, as to my sight.” Later in the First Revelation, Julian writes about the Lord’s desire that we (like Mary) come to him in prayer “nakedly, plainly, and homely”; that is, without any attachments, self-justifications, or artifice. Simply like being “at home” with the one we love most: For truly our lover desires that the soul cleave to him with all its might, and that we be evermore cleaving to his goodness. For of all things that the heart may think, it pleases God the most, and soonest benefits us. For our soul is so preciously loved by him that is highest, that it overpasses [transcends] the knowing of all creatures: that is to say, there is no creature that is made that may know how much and how sweetly and how tenderly our maker loves us. And therefore we may, with his grace and his help, stand in spiritual beholding, with everlasting marveling in this high, overpassing, unmeasurable love that our lord has for us because of his goodness. And therefore we may ask of our lover, with reverence, all that we will. For our natural will is to have God, and the good will of God is to have us, and we may never cease from willing nor from loving till we have him in fullness of joy. And then we will no more will. For he wills that we be occupied in knowing and loving till the time comes that we shall be fulfilled in heaven. Thus in this First Revelation, Julian already declares what she will realize fully only in the last chapter: the “lesson of love” that all the following Revelations will show: “For of all things, the beholding and the loving of the creator makes the soul seem least in his own sight, and fills it most with reverent awe and true humility, and with plenty of charity for its evencristens.” This insight becomes the essence of what Julian calls noughting or the forgetfulness-of-self for the sake of becoming one with Christ. When the soul learns to rest in adoration and love of the goodness of God, it does not need to perform any drastic self-mortifications to make itself feel small, humble, and insignificant. It is so overwhelmed with reverence and humility at the disparity between Creator and creature and, at the same time, so filled with an awareness of God’s stupendous love that the soul actually rejoices in its own littleness that makes it so utterly dependent on God. Julian declares that the spiritual vision of Saint Mary was the best teaching she had on this point. Mary’s high wisdom in contemplating God, “so great, so high, so mighty and so good,” filled her with deep and “reverent awe.” Even Mary, the Mother of God, conceived without sin, saw herself “so little and so low, so simple and so poor in comparison with her God, that this reverent dread filled her with meekness.” Therefore, she was made full of grace beyond any other creature. It is her very “littleness” that makes her irresistible to God. So let us come to the newborn Jesus “nakedly, plainly, and homely” this Christmas—like the shepherds—with nothing to offer except our love and “reverent beholding.” Let us kneel in the straw beside Mary and Joseph and place all our fears, sufferings, and losses of this past year into the manger. He who creates the universe has broken open heaven and come down, as Julian wrote, “to the lowest level of our need.” He who encloses us in divine love wants to be held when he cries and comforted by us. He who is born poor and outcast longs for us to shelter him in the cave of our hearts. Then he who is utterly helpless will become our deepest and most profound strength. I wish you all a loving, contemplative Christmas and a New Year filled with the peace and joy that only Christ can give. NOTE: Excerpts above and translations from the Middle English are from my book, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books. 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf |
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