In the Thirteenth Revelation, Julian contemplated not only how “alle shalle be wele” but also, why there is so much evil in the world. She wrote:
There are many evil deeds done in our sight and such great harms suffered that it seems to us that it were unpossible [impossible] that ever it should come to a good end.
Julian simply could not see how the problem of evil could be “made wele”:
And upon this [evil] we look, sorrowing and mourning therefore, so that we can not rest ourselves in the blissful beholding of God as we should do. And the cause is this: that the use of our reason is now so blind, so low, and so simple, that we can not know the high, the marvelous wisdom, the might, and the goodness of the blissful trinity.

The Effects of Evil Deeds
Julian could not forget the brutalities that had torn apart the very fabric of her life. She had not been a cloistered nun or a distant observer of the sufferings of her age. She had seen peasants bound by ropes and dragged through the streets, hanging from the back of horse-drawn carts. She had watched severed heads be raised atop pikes on the walls of Norwich. She had witnessed the hands of thieves cut off as punishment. She knew about the evils perpetrated by immoral clergy and nobility alike. She had heard the stories of rape, murder, and pillage from the war. She had held her disconsolate evencristens, crying aloud in her arms. She had spent years “sorrowing and mourning” and been unable to rest “in the blissful beholding of God.”
 
More than once, she must have asked the question that has no human answer: how could such evil deeds ever come to a good end? Julian was painfully aware that the presence of evil impacts all who look on it, listen to it, smell it, touch it. The effects of evil deeds wreak havoc in our emotional lives and test our faith in the goodness of God. The seeming triumph of evil that, for a time at least, goes unpunished, raises severe questions about God’s lack of intervention.

The terrible sufferings produced by evil wear down our hope in ever being set free from its clutches. Evil disillusions and embitters our hearts, making us unable to love or trust God as we should. Evil arouses annoyance, fuels anger, feeds the desire for revenge. And in all this, we become unable to pray, to praise, and to give glory to God as we ought to do. We cannot rest in contemplating the pure goodness of God. We are worn out with weeping.
 
Don't Despair
Julian is admitting here that she knows this debilitating process only too well. She has looked on evil and been shaken to the core by her contact with it. Yet she refuses to blame God for evil. She insists that the cause of our despair over the all-pervasiveness of evil is that our reasoning minds are “so blind, so low, and so simple.” What she means is that we simply cannot comprehend the transcendence of the Trinity in its glorious wisdom, might, and goodness. We may find it easier to believe that God may not, can not, will not, and shall not save all humankind, and that we shall never see him make “alle manner of thing wele.” This is due to our inability to comprehend who God is and what God is capable of accomplishing. It is also symptomatic of our lack of faith. It takes a long time for us to allow God’s promise to filter through our fears and find a home deep in our injured psyches.
And thus, this is what he means where he says: “Thou shalt see thyself that alle manner of thing shalle be wele,” as if he had said: “Take heed now, faithfully and trustingly, and at the last end thou shalt see truly in fullness of joy.”

Take Heed!
Julian insists we must take sharp notice of what Christ is saying. We must have faith and trust in his promises, most especially because we cannot see how this or that particular evil could ever “come to a good end.” We must hang on Christ’s words, counting on him to make all things well at the end of time, even though we have no idea how he will ever do it. We must believe that he can and wants to do it. Such belief does not arise easily. It is an acquired habit. It takes continual and determined practice. But if we do practice such belief, then “at the last end,” we will be able to “see truly in the fullness of joy” how Christ has done it.
 
In these cruel times of persecution for so many millions of God’s beloved children, let us encourage one another to hang onto hope that Christ IS at work, caring and comforting, healing and reassuring, even though we know not how. Eventually, Justice will be done. Mercy will abound. As Mary sang in her Magnfcat: God will "bring down rulers from their thrones and lift up the humble." God "will fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty." And in our own times of trial, let us trust "mightily" that, as Julian understood, “Thou shalt see thyself that alle manner of thing shalle be wele.”
 
PLEASE NOTE: Excerpts above are from Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books), Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the express permission of the author.

In her last Revelation, Julian understood that “our soul may never have rest in any thing that is beneath itself.” Furthermore, she realized that when the soul rises above all creatures in a state of contemplative prayer, it cannot even rest in beholding itself. It must set its concentration on the vastness of God’s presence within the soul. “For in man’s soul is God’s true dwelling,” and “the highest light and the brightest shining of the city” within that soul is God’s glorious love.
 
And what could make the soul happier than to know that God “delights in us, the highest of all his works”?
For I saw in the same showing that if the blessed trinity might have made the human soul any better, any fairer, any nobler than it was, God should not have been fully pleased with the making of the soul. But because the trinity made the human soul as beautiful, as good, as precious a creature as it might make it, therefore the blessed trinity is fully pleased without end in the making of our soul. And God wills that our hearts be mightily raised above the deepnesse of the earth and all vain sorrows, and rejoice in him.
 
Beholding
Julian takes great comfort in this final Revelation that God dwells in her soul. And she is certain that God wants us all to take the same comfort through the practice of “beholding.”
This was a delectable sight and a restful showing that is without end. And the beholding of this while we are here, it is very pleasant to God, and a very great benefit to us. And the soul that thus beholds, makes itself like to him that it is beheld, and oneth it in rest and in peace by his grace. And this was a singular joy and bliss to me that I saw him sit, for the security of sitting showed endless dwelling.
 
This type of contemplative prayer (waiting on God, in stillness, without asking for anything) gives God great pleasure and the soul great profit. Such silent prayer forms the soul into a truer image and likeness of the very One who is being contemplated. Julian is especially delighted that she saw the Lord seated in her soul (rather than standing or moving), because sitting symbolizes the familiar rest one takes at home, in complete contentment, peace, and love. God is not going anywhere. It is we who rush about, too busy with our lives and too distracted by our sufferings to take time to experience his inward presence. He thirsts for us to “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Ps 46:10). And if we come to him with our labors and our heavy burdens, he promises to give us true rest (Mt 11:28).
 
In spite of all the anger, hatred, and violence in the world, we, too, can find rest in contemplating the goodness of God and the salvation of Jesus Christ that is transforming all suffering into eternal honors. Julian’s fourteenth century was also a violent, tumultuous era. Nevertheless, Julian could rejoice on a daily basis that God’s true dwelling is forever in the human soul. As Christ said to his disciples: “the kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17:21). Let us learn from Julian how to behold that divine reality and unconditional love within our souls. Then we ourselves may become sources of light, healing, and peace for the whole world.
 
PLEASE NOTE: Excerpts above are from Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books), Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the express permission of the author.

For Julian of Norwich, it is faith, and faith alone, that enables us to know our true origin, who we are, and our ultimate destination. Julian understood that faith and all the other virtues come from the Holy Spirit, and that without the Spirit’s gifts no one receives any virtue. Julian sees faith as the most exalted kind of understanding.
For faith is nothing else but a right understanding with true belief and seker trust within our being, that we are in God and he is in us, which we cannot see.
 
Noticeably, Julian does not lay out a set of doctrines that must be affirmed to have faith (although she never denies that faith involves believing what the church teaches). Her concentration here is different. For her, faith is the secure trust that, within the ground of our being, the soul is in God and God is in the soul. Faith is precisely the spiritual insight that enables us to know what we cannot comprehend by human reasoning alone. It is an inspired understanding of our creation and redemption which, because of the blindness caused by sin, we are obviously unable to experience directly. Sin has deprived humanity of the ability to “see” God, but faith appears as inner vision. It is essential to our self awareness. As St. Paul has written: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1, italics added). If we dare to believe, faith (along with all the other virtues that God grants the soul) “works great things in us.”
 
Of course, it is actually Christ who does the monumental work of mercy in the soul at all times, constantly reconciling us to himself. By his divine activity we are made able to see and understand more and more, through the gifts and virtues of the Holy Spirit. Julian identifies this inner working of the Lord as that which enables us to become “Christ’s children and christian in living.” It is always and ever Christ’s work in our souls, not our own. Julian affirms that Christ is our way, continually leading us and teaching us by his laws. He delights in this work, as does his Father. Julian recalls the Ninth Revelation, in which she saw Christ bear all who are members of his Mystical Body into heaven, where he presents them to his Father, who receives these souls thankfully and then graciously returns them to his Son.
Which gift and working is joy to the father, and bliss to the son, and liking to the holy ghost. Of all the things that we are obliged to do in this life, we must give God the greatest pleasure by rejoicing in this joy. And notwithstanding all our feeling, woe or wele, God wills we understand and believe that we are more truly in heaven than on earth.
 
What an astounding statement! Julian is certain that, because Christ has already saved us and incorporated us into his Mystical Body, our true lives are not here, in our mortal bodies, but in the joyful embrace of the Trinity. For Julian, we are more spiritual than fleshly, more at home in heaven than on earth. She further describes faith as arising from “the natural love of our soul” for what is good and from “the clear light of our reason,” which enables us to think and inform the will in order to make good decisions, as well as from the “steadfast memory” that we have of God in our creation. We might consider faith as a sacred remembrance that never forgets where we have come from: God. It is a spiritual homesickness that longs to return where it belongs.

This coming Pentecost, let us pray for an infusion of faith from the Holy Spirit that will inspire us —in times of “woe or wele”—to lead lives that are truly on fire with faith!
 
PLEASE NOTE: Excerpts above are from Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books, 2013), Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the express permission of the author.

Today, the 8th of May, is Julian’s Feast Day, the day she received her Revelations of Divine Love! Let us rejoice that Christ chose to show his sufferings on the cross as well as his transcendent joy and bliss to her in such a visceral way, with words of wisdom and comfort that echo through the ages. And let us give thanks that in spite of persecutions and the burning of books after her death, both Julian’s Short and Long Texts were spared, and copied, and so bequeathed to us for our own time. I think if Julian were to say anything to us on her special day, it would be this:
 
And thus I understood that any man or woman who willingly chooses God in this lifetime for love, he may be seker (certain) that he is loved without end, with endless love that works in him that grace [of choosing God]. For he [God] wills we recollect this trustfully, that we are as seker in hope of the bliss of heaven while we are here as we shall be in sekernesse (certainty) when we are there. And ever the more pleasure and joy that we take in this sekernesse, with reverence and humility, the more it delights him.
 
No matter how many trials and sufferings we may have to bear; no matter how dark and dangerous the world situation may look; no matter how little we understand who we really are and why this or that is happening in our lives; and no matter how long we may have to wait for Christ to reveal himself to us, we must never give up certain hope of the bliss of divine union that awaits us! We must hope and trust “mightily” that Christ is always at work in us, and in those we love, and in the world situations; hope and trust that “alle shalle be wele” because God is pure goodness and love; hope and trust that even though we may be distressed or tempted (and often fail), we are never less loved by God; hope and trust that we may be as “certain in hope of bliss in heaven while we are here as we shall be certain when we are there.” As Christ said to Julian: “Thou shalt not be overcome.” And she wasn’t.
 
Happy Feast Day, dear Julian, from all those who love you! Please pray for us!

PLEASE NOTE: Excerpts above are from Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books, 2013), Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the express permission of the author.

As we approach the holiest days of the church year, we may wonder how we can walk with Christ on his journey from the Last Supper, to Calvary, to the tomb . . . and then exult at his rising from the dead at Easter. Can we “be there” when they crucified our Lord? Yes we can, because we were truly there in Christ’s heart and in his mind during his washing of our feet, in his prayer that we would not be scandalized, throughout his arrest and trials, and in his shocking betrayal by Judas and then by Peter, the disciple he trusted most. We were always there in his suffering during his scourging, his crowning with thorns, his being mocked and rejected . . . and finally in his crucifixion. We were truly there in his profound divine/human intentionality: he suffered all this for each and every one of us, simply because he loves us.
 
And then we were there in Christ’s ecstatic joy at rising from the dead to reassure us that he has transformed all our sufferings and all our deaths. We were there with women and the disciples running to the tomb and discovering that it was empty, empty of death, radiant with the hope of a new and transcendent life. We were there in the apparitions of the Risen Lord to Mary Magdalene in the garden, to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, to the frightened disciples in the upper room, to the seven disciples on a beach. To “be there” with him throughout Passiontide and Easter, we have only to be still and silent and allow him to take us into his heart in order to become aware that we were always, already “there” in his unconditional love for us.
 
During her Revelations of Christ on the cross, Julian herself became acutely conscious that all the pain of her life, and of everyone’s life, was united with the pain of Christ on the cross. And this 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 realized 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 believed 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.”
 
Julian 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.

Yes, we were "there" then. We may be "there" now. We have only to allow the Spirit to take us deep into the sacred liturgy to be with Christ on his path through suffering and death into glory.

Faith is an art. And like any form of art, it makes demands if it is to be perfected.
First of all, it demands commitment. We must devote our lives to studying the foundational truths of our faith, asking questions, seeking answers and spiritual guidance, praying for deeper understanding. We must examine the nature of our faith—is it a flicker or a burning fire? We must cherish our faith as a precious gift of divine life so that it will grow like a mustard seed into a great tree of life (Lk 13:19).
Second, we need to practice. We must do the very things our faith advises: meditate on sacred Scripture, be faithful in celebrating the Lord’s Day and holy days, and receive the grace-filled sacraments with sincere devotion. We must become more involved in the life of our worshiping community, listen to others with compassion, support and reinforce their own faith, speak with conviction and courage, love without condition.
Third, we need to pray. We must pray for an ever deeper faith for ourselves, for those we love, for the whole world. We must believe that Christ is working in every heart to bring each one of us to a more vibrant faith, a more daring hope, a greater love. And we must surrender ourselves completely to the work the Lord is doing in us—with faith that he will make “all things well.”
Fourth, we must persevere. We must hold onto faith in the midst of trials that will sorely test the depth of our belief. We must be willing to endure insults to our faith, even to the point of ridicule, rejection, or outright persecution. We must rejoice that we are able to suffer some small measure of what the saints suffered to be faithful to Christ. And we must pray that those who stand against us or cause us pain might come to believe.
Fifth, we must witness. In a materialistic world, we must bear witness to our faith in the divine dimension as the true source of all reality—not necessarily by preaching or teaching, but by living the values of our faith with joy and transparency. We must be willing to speak to others who are in crisis about the unconditional love of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier in whom we believe.
Sixth, we must trust. Especially in times of tragedy, temptation, or doubt, we must trust that the promises Christ has made to us through our faith will be fulfilled. St. Paul wrote that in this life, “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). And Julian of Norwich counsels us in her Second Revelation:
For God wills that we believe that we see him continually, though we think that it be but little, and in this belief he makes us evermore to gain grace. For he will be seen, and he will be sought, and he will be waited for and he will be trusted. . . . And this vision was a teaching to my understanding that the continual seeking of the soul pleases God very greatly. For the soul may do no more than seek, suffer, and trust. And this is wrought in every soul that has it by the holy ghost. And the clearness of finding, it is because of his special grace when it is his will. The seeking with faith, hope and charity pleases our lord, and the finding pleases the soul, and fulfills it with joy.
If we take heed of Julian's words, our faith will become a divine work of art!

PLEASE NOTE: Excerpts above are from Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books, 2013), Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the express permission of the author.

As we approach Ash Wednesday, we recall that our Lenten practice should include prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. What if we practiced “a different kind of Lent” this year? What if, in addition to verbal prayer. Liturgy, and reading Scripture, we committed to silent prayer? We would simply sit still in the presence of Christ in our hearts, keep watch on our breath and let go of our thoughts, as well as our emotional attachment to those thoughts. Twenty to thirty minutes of such silent meditation practice every morning and evening would deepen our faith in the Savior on whom we rely for every breath, the ground of our very being, the one who loves us enough to die for us. Is an hour a day too much to offer in return? “Could you not keep watch for one hour?” (Mark 14:37).
What about a different type of fasting—from bickering, complaining, criticizing, gossiping, and judging the words and actions of others? That’s much harder to give up than chocolate, ice cream, or alcohol! We could fast from chewing on the latest scandal, judging people’s motivations, making sweeping condemnations, or spreading lies and fake news. We might even fast from our addictive online news sources, from social networks and newspapers. The world would go on without us knowing about it for forty days. Meanwhile, we would become mentally and emotionally free to send out light, peace, and hope to heal the world from the depths of our silent prayer.
As for almsgiving, perhaps we could care for the poor and persecuted in a special way during this Lenten season. What about a more hands-on approach than just sending a check to our favorite charity or giving a cash handout to a homeless person? What about volunteering for an hour or two a week to offer some service to the needy and marginalized in our community? Our love and compassion could touch many lives and really make a difference this Lent. The need is so great “and the laborers are few” (Luke 10:2).
Notice that silencing our thoughts, speaking only positive words of encouragement, and reaching out to help those in need, express the quality of our faith, hope, and love. And these are precisely the virtues that all Lenten practices are meant to increase. Please let us hear your own thoughts and suggestions for a “different kind of Lent.”

So excited to share an article on Julian of Norwich that I was invited to write for "Transformation" on OpenDemocracy.net.  It will reach 250 countries. Please take time to ponder it and share with family and friends on social media. "What might a medieval recluse say to postmodern activists?" Read and find out. And please post your comments! Thanks.

​“Alle Shalle Be Wele:” Julian of Norwich and the process of transformation
VERONICA MARY ROLF 10 February 2019

Julian of Norwich was born in 1342. No stranger to violence and suffering, she grew up in a world ravaged by the Hundred Years’ War between England and France and torn apart by the Great Papal Schism. She also lived through the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, during which thousands of disenfranchised tenant farmers and laborers marched all over England looting monasteries, burning records of their serfdom and debt, and killing their hated overlords. Most tragic of all, from the time Julian was six years old, she endured repeated outbreaks of the Great Pestilence - later termed the Black Death - which eventually killed more than half the population of Europe, some 50 million people. It was no less than apocalyptic.
In May of 1373 when Julian was 30, her body broke down. She became paralyzed and was near death. The local curate told her to fix her eyes on the crucifix. Suddenly all her pain was taken away and the figure of Christ on the cross appeared to come alive. For the next 12 hours, Julian entered into a profound mystical experience of Christ’s sufferings and his transformation into glory. She received sixteen revelations and heard locutions that stayed with her for the rest of her life - especially Christ’s personal reassurance that “Alle shalle be wele and alle shalle be wele and all manner of thing shalle be wele.”
At first, Julian could not accept these words. How could she believe that ‘all things would be well’ when her own world was obviously falling apart? She was so tortured by the success of evil and the degradation of suffering that she had often wondered why “the beginning of sin had not been prevented. For then I thought all would have been wele.” She dared to question the vision: “Ah, good lord, how might alle be wele for the great harm that has come by sin to thy creatures?” Julian’s mental anguish was not just an excessive medieval preoccupation with sin; it was indicative of humanity’s innate sense that our lives are terribly broken and that we don’t know how to fix them. We simply cannot save ourselves from the messes we get into because of our pride, anger, selfishness, jealousy, greed and lies.
Surprisingly, Julian was told in a locution that sin could be “behovely” - that is, “useful,” even “necessary”- because it forces us to realize our need for divine mercy and spiritual healing. She further understood that in God there is no wrath or blame - all the anger and recrimination are on our side. God shows only compassion and pity for human beings because of the inevitable suffering we have to endure as a result of our misdeeds. Julian became convinced that everyone is loved unconditionally by God. As she wrote:
“For our soul is so preciously loved by him that is highest, that it overpasses 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 ask of our lover, with reverence, all that we will.”
This revelation filled Julian with immense compassion for her fellow human beings. She longed to bear witness to divine love, mercy, and the revelations she had experienced. Admittedly, Julian did not become ‘politically active’ in our contemporary sense. No woman in her time was allowed to be educated at university (i.e. Oxford or Cambridge), hold public office, instruct others, or preach from a pulpit. Lay people were forbidden to teach religion (except to their children). But if we consider that ‘political’ connotes selfless devotion to serving the ‘body politic’ and showing compassion to those in need, then Julian did become a force for social transformation. There were three things she decided to do: pray, counsel, and write.
Around 1390, Julian chose to be enclosed as an anchorite - literally “anchored” to the side of the church of St. Julian (no relation) in Norwich. There she lived for about 25 years in a small hermit’s cell, attended by a maid who brought her food, clean clothing, parchment and ink. She devoted herself to prayer and contemplation, to counseling those who came to her anchorage window seeking spiritual direction, and to writing.
Julian worked diligently on several versions of the Long Text of her revelations (she had penned a Short Text in the 1370s). She developed a mystical theology of the Trinity; of the goodness of God reflected in a tiny hazelnut; of the lack of wrath or blame in God; of the godly will “that never assented to sin, nor never shall;” of the Great Deed that Christ will accomplish at the end of the world; of divine inspiration that is the ground of our beseeching in prayer; of the value of suffering; and of the ‘motherhood’ of God, so relevant to our time.
She realized that “as truly as God is our father, as truly is God our mother.” By giving birth to humankind in blood and water on the cross and by nurturing and inspiring us throughout our lives, Mother Christ is the paradigm for all earthly mothers, caregivers, advisors, teachers, and volunteers; for all those who dedicate their lives to the works of mercy and social service. All the while, Julian searched for the deeper meaning of all the Lord’s revelations. One day she was answered in prayer: “Know it well, love was his meaning.” Divine love became the meaning of her life and her message to the world.
Although Julian was, by her own account, “unlettered” (she could not read or write Latin, the language of Scripture and theology), she was the first woman ever to write a book in the English language. She implored her readers to receive the revelations as if they had been shown to us, not her. She died sometime after 1416, and her writings were almost destroyed during the Reformation. Providentially, the Long Text was scurried away to France by recusant Benedictine nuns. It was not until 1910 that the Short Text finally resurfaced at a Sotheby’s auction. Since then, Julian’s reputation and influence have grown worldwide. The American mystic and activist Thomas Merton called Julian one of “the greatest English theologians,” and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams considered Julian’s book to be “the most important work of Christian reflection in the English language.”
What has Julian to tell us about the process of transformation? How can we work to make ‘all things well’ in our world without losing heart? Anyone who has ever served the poor, the persecuted, or the marginalized knows that the two greatest dangers are disillusionment and burnout. The problems are so vast and our efforts so small. In our frustration, we may try to dictate solutions instead of eliciting creative collaboration. We become exhausted, infuriated, and sometimes feel betrayed. We question how we can continue when the odds seem stacked against us.
Julian would tell us that we must go into the “ground” of our being in order to “live contemplatively.” Like her, we must develop a daily practice in which we learn to rest and breathe in silence and stillness, becoming aware of the turbulence in our minds, releasing thoughts and letting go of our emotional attachment to those thoughts. We need to become ever more aware of being aware, in order to experience the deep interconnectedness of our own awareness with divine awareness. And then we must rely on divine awareness working in us and through us if we are to make a difference. We cannot do it alone. And we cannot do what others must do for themselves. We can only evaluate, advise, encourage, and empower.
Will such a contemplative practice transform the world? Not immediately. But it will transform us. Our love will go deeper, our patience will grow stronger, and our service will become more authentic and productive. We will be able to feel compassion for those who challenge us, and keep our balance in situations that threaten to undermine us. We will listen more attentively, evaluate opposing viewpoints more generously, and cooperate more willingly. We will recognize that the real work of transformation - whether of individuals or of nations - is divine work. Nevertheless, we humans play an indispensable part: every act of peace and loving service, and every word of kindness or forgiveness helps to make “alle manner of thing” well. The more we collaborate with the work of divine love, the more we will experience that love bearing fruit in our own lives and in the lives of others. As we are transformed, others will be too.
The revelation that “alle shalle be wele” does not provide an instant cure-all for our personal, family, and global problems. These words are a prophecy and a promise - of an ultimate transformation. Eventually, divine love will convert every evil into good, every inequality into justice, and every suffering into joy. However, we will not be able to see how this will happen until we have been fully transformed from within; until we have been recreated through death and rebirth into the divine dimension. Then at last we will be able to understand how “alle manner of thing shalle be wele” - because the divine dimension is love.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/veronica-mary-rolf/alle-shalle-be-wele-julian-of-norwich-and-process-of-transformatio
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