Julian's Voice
  • Julian's Voice
  • Who was Julian of Norwich?
  • About the Author: Veronica Mary Rolf
  • Veronica's Blog on Julian
  • Meditating with Julian
  • A Retreat with Julian
  • Julian Retreat Schedule
  • Julian Retreat Photos
  • Book Reviews for "An Explorer's Guide to Julian of Norwich
  • Book Reviews for "Julian's Gospel"
  • Book Awards for "Julian's Gospel"
  • Videos, Podcasts & Articles about Veronica Mary Rolf
  • Contact Veronica
  • Julian's Voice
  • Who was Julian of Norwich?
  • About the Author: Veronica Mary Rolf
  • Veronica's Blog on Julian
  • Meditating with Julian
  • A Retreat with Julian
  • Julian Retreat Schedule
  • Julian Retreat Photos
  • Book Reviews for "An Explorer's Guide to Julian of Norwich
  • Book Reviews for "Julian's Gospel"
  • Book Awards for "Julian's Gospel"
  • Videos, Podcasts & Articles about Veronica Mary Rolf
  • Contact Veronica

Why Julian Now?

6/18/2018

0 Comments

 
What is it about Julian that speaks to us today? Why are her fourteenth-century Revelations of Divine Love so relevant to us in the twenty-first century? What is Julian telling us that we desperately need to hear in our violent, suffering world? . . .
 
A Voice for Our Time
Perhaps the best answer to the question “Why Julian now?” is that in our age of uncertainty, inconceivable suffering, and seemingly perpetual violence and war (not unlike fourteenth-century Europe), Julian shows us the way toward contemplative peace. In a time of rampant prejudice and religious persecution, Julian inspires us to non-judgmental acceptance and universal compassion. In a world of deadly diseases and ecological disasters, Julian teaches us how to endure pain in patience and trust that Christ is working to transform every cross into 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. 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 so appealing today?
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, 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 divine revelations.
 
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: The excerpts above are from the just-published An Explorer’s Guide to Julian of Norwich (InterVarsity Academic Press, June, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the express permission of the author.
0 Comments

Julian's Feast Day!

5/8/2018

0 Comments

 
Today, May 8th, is Julian’s Feast Day in the Anglican and Lutheran Churches. In the Catholic Church, Julian is celebrated on May 13th. In Julian’s honor, let us consider these words from the Revelations of Divine Love that appear near the very end of her book and, no doubt, her long life:
​
Our faith is a light, naturally coming from our endless day that is our father, God; in which light our mother, Christ, and our good lord, the Holy Ghost, lead us in this mortal life . . . And at the end of woe, suddenly our eye shall be opened, and in clearness of sight our light shall be full . . . Thus I saw and understood that our faith is our light in our night, which light is God, our endless day.
Faith, Hope, and Love
Julian extols faith as the light that shines in our darkness, amidst our fears, within our sadness, and through all our joys. It is the presence of the blessed Trinity within us that keeps us hope-filled even when we see no way out of our predicament or the sufferings of the world. She further identifies the source of our light as none other than “charity” or spiritual love. This charity keeps us in faith and in hope, and faith and hope lead us ever more deeply into charity. Like St. Paul, Julian is convinced that, at the end “alle shalle be charity.”
Julian was also shown three ways of understanding this light of charity: uncreated charity (which is God’s love), created charity (which is the soul within God’s love), and charity given (which is the virtue of love). This gift of love that is bequeathed to us through the working of grace enables us to “love God for himself, and our self in God, and all that God loves, for the sake of God.” Julian marveled greatly at this virtue of charity because she realized that even though we live foolishly and blindly here on earth, yet God always beholds our efforts to lead lives of love. Furthermore, Julian assures us that God takes great joy in our good deeds. In fact, she reiterates that the best way we can please God is by wisely and truly believing that we please him, and “to rejoice with him and in him.”
For as truly as we shall be in the bliss of God without end, praising and thanking him, as truly have we been in the foresight of God, loved and known in his endless purpose from without beginning, in which unbegun love he created us. In the same love he keeps us, and never suffers us to be hurt by which our bliss might be lessened. And therefore when the final judgment is given, and we are all brought up above, then shall we clearly see in God the privities which now are hidden from us.

On her Feast Day, may Julian’s words reassure us that faith, hope, and charity are living realities and powerful gifts, flowing from the very life of the Trinity within us. Let us rejoice that the Lord is always “pleased” with our efforts to live by the power of these three virtues. And may we experience some measure of Julian’s own joy this day—not because of specific circumstances, but because we are loved by our Creator from “without beginning” and will be loved through all eternity. Happy Julian’s Day!
PLEASE NOTE: The quotations above are from Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books), Copyright ©2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the written permission of the author.
0 Comments

The Joy of Resurrection

4/3/2018

0 Comments

 

"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."

During her revelations, Julian had been gazing on the suffering and dying Christ on the cross for hours. She expected to see him die. But in a flash, a timeless moment, suddenly his entire face was changed from excruciating pain to ecstatic bliss. And the transformation of Christ instantly transformed Julian as well. From suffering in compassion with Christ on the cross, she was transported with him into ecstatic joy. She says of herself: “I was completely merry.” What a word of giddy grace, welling up out of relief, gratitude, realization, and love!
Perhaps that was what the women felt who came to the tomb on Easter morning in deep sorrow. Their beloved Jesus was dead. They had seen him taken down from the cross and buried in a tomb with a massive stone rolled in front of it. They never expected to find the stone rolled back and the tomb empty – or to experience an angelic presence! When the “young man” told them “He has been raised. He is not here! Look, there is the place they laid him.” (Mk 16:6), they felt fear, awe, perhaps disbelief (as we might also do if we visited the grave of a loved one, found the tombstone knocked over, the coffin open and empty, and saw an angel-like presence and heard him speak to us!). In the shorter version of Mark, the women ran away because they were full of “terror and amazement” and told no one (lest they be considered out of their minds). But in Matthew’s account, the women left “in fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples” (Mt 28:8) and met Jesus himself on the road. In seeing the risen Lord, they (like Julian) were filled with a giddy, irrepressible joy that the world could not take away. They knew Christ was risen indeed!
​
Our Reaction
How do we experience the resurrection story? Do we run away and not tell anyone about our faith in the risen Lord because we’re afraid? Because it’s too much to deal with, too inconceivable, too impossible to believe? Are we confused about the implications of Christ being alive and present within and among us here and now? If Christ is truly risen and truly with us, what does that mean in our lives? What must change? What must we do to realize his presence in our midst more deeply?
Or do we rejoice from the depths of our being that Christ has died (and we have “died with him") and will never die again? That he has already taken us into his death and so in a real sense we, too, are even now being resurrected in him? Do we give profound thanks that we have been forgiven all our misdeeds? Do we acknowledge that we are being transformed, newly created each moment in the life of the Holy Spirit? Do we take time everyday to contemplate the light of Christ shining within us and radiating out to the whole world?
The joy of Easter is contagious. So is the vibrant reality of new life, new light, and new hope breaking into our dark and tortured world. We must become that life, that light, that hope! Let us be like Julian—and the women at the empty tomb—who were awestruck and overjoyed that Christ has transformed death once and for all. Let us bear witness to the good news that Christ has overcome all suffering and evil, even if we cannot see it right now. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, let us dare to live every day in the reality of the risen Christ, as children of the resurrection!
PLEASE NOTE: The quotations above are from Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books), Copyright ©2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the written permission of the author.
0 Comments

The Mind of the Passion

3/10/2018

0 Comments

 
Near the beginning of her Revelations, Julian tells us that in her youth, she had “some measure of feeling for the passion of Christ.” Yet she was convinced that her ability to enter into the Lord’s sufferings on Calvary did not go deep enough. She wanted to feel more, to suffer more, in order to have a truer understanding of what Christ underwent to save the world from sin. She hoped that if she received a vision, the reality of Christ’s “bodily pains” would become so physical, so visceral, so immediate that she could experience them as fully as if she had been standing in front of Christ on the cross, next to Mary, his Mother, and Magdalene, and the “others who were Christ’s lovers.” She wanted to be a living figure in the scene of the crucifixion.
       Her prayer was granted. After first seeing Christ come alive on the crucifix that hung before her, she was given a bodily sight of part of his passion. The gruesome experience became so intense that Julian admitted she could not describe the many impressions it had on her. She simply attested that she saw this sight of the passion “bodily, sorrowfully, and obscurely.”

Deep Drying and Deep Dying
“I saw the sweet face as it were dry and bloodless with pale dying; and afterward more deadly pale, languishing; and then it turned more deadly into blue; and afterward more brown blue, as the flesh turned more deeply dead. For his passion showed to me most explicitly in his blessed face, and especially in his lips, there I saw these four colors—those lips that were before fresh and ruddy, lively and pleasing to my sight. This was a terrible change, to see this deep dying. And also the nose withered together and dried, to my sight, and the sweet body waxed brown and black, all changed and turned out from the fair, fresh, and lively color of himself into dry dying.”
       Julian watches Christ suffer and expire in front of her, as she had watched loved ones die in wave after wave of the Great Pestilence. She knows the shriveling of the nose, of the whole body, the progression of color from the blue of deep bruising to brown and thence to black, as the bodily fluids dried up, the blood clotted and ceased to flow. There is more, much more:
“For in that same time that our blessed savior died upon the rood [cross], it was a dry, bitter wind, wondrous cold as to my sight. And at the time all the precious blood was bled out of the sweet body that might pass therefrom, yet there dwelled a moisture in the sweet flesh of Christ, as it was shown. Bloodlessness and pain dried from within, and the blowing of the wind and cold coming from without, met together in the sweet body of Christ. And these four, two without and two within, dried the flesh of Christ over the course of time. And though this pain was bitter and sharp, yet it was very long-lasting, as to my sight. And the pain dried up all the lively spirits of Christ’s flesh.”
       In Julian’s vivid personal experience of the crucifixion, she felt the wind blow frigid, as if blasting from the North Sea, across the broad waters and into Norwich. Julian knew the biting saltiness and searing coldness of that unrelenting wind, and it seemed to be howling that day on Calvary. The wind and the bitter cold are nowhere documented in the gospels, nor are there any details of the endless bleeding and descriptions of Christ’s great pains. In fact, the four gospel accounts do not describe his sufferings at all. This is Julian’s own gospel, told with great attention to the drying up of Christ’s face, lips, and all the life-elements of his body. She is finally and truly “there,” in the midst of the passion, as she had longed to be. And it is more dreadful than she ever could have imagined.

Christ’s Thirst
“And in this drying was brought to my mind this word that Christ said: ‘I thirst.’ For I saw in Christ a double thirst: one bodily, and another ghostly [spiritual]. This word was shown for bodily thirst, and for the ghostly thirst was shown as I shall say after. And I understood by the bodily thirst that the body had lack of moisture, for the blessed flesh and bones were left all alone without blood and moisture.”
      Julian becomes fixated on the “drying” of Christ’s body. It reminds her of, and partially explains, the words spoken by Christ and recorded by John the Evangelist, “I am thirsty” (Jn 19:28). At this moment in Julian’s vision, as on Calvary, all the fluids in Christ’s body have dried up. He is parched, with a terrible human thirst. His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth, his lips are swollen, cracked and bleeding. What a pitiful cry Julian hears from the Son of God, who is himself the “fountain of living water” (Jer 2:13), the Savior who Isaiah wrote would “pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground” (Is 44:3). This is the same Lord who told the Samaritan woman at the well, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (Jn 4:10). And this is the Teacher who had cried out, saying, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink” (Jn 7:37–38). Now, he was like the psalmist, David, in the wilderness of Judah, crying out: “O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Ps 63:1)
       Julian does not spare us any aspects of what she saw in her vision. This is perhaps the most graphic account of the crucifixion in medieval literature. It is filled with details that remained indelibly imprinted in Julian’s memory as a result of her keen observation. In addition to the inexorable “drying” of the body, she describes the enlarging of the wounds in the hands due to the great sagging of the body, with hair clinging to the flesh and thorns, and the thorns mingled with flesh and hair, all caked with dried blood. She also tries to convey the drying and browning of Christ’s torn and sagging pieces of skin as “small rumpelde” (that is, slightly rumpled or wrinkled). His matted hair, his dark brown face, his body caked with dried blood, all take on the color of “a dried board when it is aged,” like the wood of the cross itself.
      Julian confesses that she was at a loss to say what it was actually like to watch Christ die. She can write only that, “The showing of Christ’s pains filled me full of pains.” She knows that Christ suffered “once for all” (Heb 10:10), but she also believes Christ showed it to her “as if” she had been there, so that he could “fill me with mind [of the passion], as I had before desired.” In her Revelations, Julian experienced Christ’s agony in her own body, with true compassion for Christ on the cross. She literally suffered with him.
      As we approach Holy Week, might we, like Julian, also seek the “mind of the passion”? Might we dare to "go deeper" into the reality of Good Friday? We have only to take time each day to meditate on Julian’s descriptions of the sufferings of Christ on the cross. In contemplative silence, we may stand at the foot of the cross next to Mary, his Mother, and Magdalene, and the “others who were Christ’s lovers.” With them, we may watch, and wait, and breathe in deep compassion with Christ . . . uniting all the sufferings of our tortured world and our own personal lives to his own. Thus, like Julian, we may help quench the Savior’s thirst for souls by giving him to drink from the depths of our own love.

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

Lent & "Noughting"

2/13/2018

0 Comments

 
As we begin Lent on Ash Wednesday, Julian of Norwich has a word for us. In her first Revelation, she states that every man and woman who “desires to live contemplatively” must desire “to nought all things that are made in order to have the love of God that is unmade.”

What does Julian mean by nought? The word was not known before the twelfth century, when it meant, literally, “nothing” (like zero). 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 considered the essential way of purgation, before illumination and spiritual union with God could be achieved. Does Julian’s idea of noughting mean that we must turn our backs on those we love and cherish, give up everything we enjoy doing, cease working to realize our dreams, and cut ourselves off from the world? Not at all. But Julian does imply that unless we attend to our spiritual lives, we will never find true happiness.
 
Julian was well aware that in her fourteenth century Norwich (as in our twenty-first century world) people were consumed by “things,” myopically focused on success, often indulgent in pleasures and violent in disagreement. She considered that “they who are occupied willfully in earthly business and evermore seek worldly wellbeing, are not completely at ease in heart and soul” because “they love and seek here rest in this thing [like the hazelnut] that is so little, where no rest is. And know not God who is all mighty, all wise, and all good.” In other words, she saw that we become so consumed by demands and desires that we can miss the point of our lives!
 
The sense in which Julian uses nought 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.

Is Julian speaking to us? Perhaps she is. What if this Lenten season we committed ourselves to seeking rest in God more than in “things”? What if we dedicated time every day for silent meditation, rather than escaping into activities that cannot satisfy the deepest needs of our heart? What if we examined our thoughts and actions every morning and evening in order to see just how addicted we have become to emails and iPhones, gossip and criticism, even jealousy and outbursts of anger? What if we sincerely decided to nought a bad habit by letting go of it a little more each day, turning it over to God, and allowing grace to replace it with a more positive type of behavior? What if we went out of our way to please someone else instead of ourselves? What if we “gave up” a bit of our self-centeredness and really focused on another’s needs? What if we stopped talking and really listened, not only to each other, but to God?
​
Julian assures us that only God is “true rest.” Perhaps this Lent we could practice resting in God. Perhaps we might let go of worry and fear. Perhaps we could create more inner silence simply to “be still” with the Lord. Perhaps we might consider less “needing” and more noughting.

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

Millennials and Miracles

1/28/2018

0 Comments

 

​As part of the Thirteenth Revelation, Christ gave Julian a special understanding and direct teaching on the “werking and shewing of miracles”:
“It is known that I have done miracles here before, many and numerous, high and marvelous, honorable and great. And just as I have done I do now continually, and shall do in coming of time.” It is known that before miracles, come sorrows and anguish and trouble. And that is so that we should know our own feebleness and mischief that we are fallen into by sinne, to humble us and make us fear God, crying for help and grace. And great miracles come after, because of the high might and wisdom and goodness of God, shewing his virtues and the joys of heaven, as far as it may be possible in this passing life, and that for the strengthening of our faith, and increase of our hope in love. Therefore it pleases him to beknown and worshipped in miracles.
 
Some millennials have serious problems with miracles. To them, miracles are the equivalent of old wives’ tales, superstition, or sheer gullibility. Only the Laws of Nature can be counted on. Only scientific proof is reliable. But oftentimes, science cannot explain a sudden cure of the incurable, a radical conversion of a hardened heart, an astounding escape from great danger. Some might simply call that “good luck.”


Earlier, Julian had said that there is no such thing as good or bad luck:
And I saw truly that nothing is done by happe [good fortune] nor by aventure [bad accident], but all by the foreseeing wisdom of God. If it be happe or aventure in the sight of man, our blindness and our lack of foresight are the cause.
In other words, unexpected miracles are happening all the time, both in full view and hidden within the depths of the individual soul. But because of our blindness – and the fact that we cannot know the infinite potential of the future – we fail to see the miracles. We do not even believe in their possibility. So we dare not ask for them. Gradually, we lose the ability to hope for them. As a result, we fail to recognize them when they happen.


Julian's divine dimension
In Julian’s view of the world, however, nothing occurs without divine grace. She intimates that miracles done on earth are a glimpse of God’s unsurpassed and everlasting creative delight, a foretaste of both the deed that will be done immediately when we come into heaven, and of the Great Deed to be revealed at the end of time. Julian cautions, however, that miracles occur only after long periods of “sorrows and anguish and trouble.” She understands that this painful process is absolutely necessary.
 
All through the gospels, the pattern is the same: a penitent is in desperate need, paralyzed by illness, sin, and suffering, cries out, seeks forgiveness from Christ, and then is healed of the infirmity, first of soul, then of body. For which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Stand up and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins—he then said to the paralytic—“Stand up, take your bed and go to your home” (Mt 9:5–6, Mk 2:9–11). Only in true contrition is the suffering soul able to feel the scales fall from its eyes and experience the miracle of regaining its inner sight (Acts 9:18). Only with the eyes of faith can we being to "see" miracles happening.
 
Julian discloses that Christ does not want us to become overly depressed because of the “sorrows and tempestes that fall to us.” She remarks that it has ever been thus . . . just before miracles happen.

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

Christmas Love

12/23/2017

0 Comments

 
Julian of Norwich ends the book of her Revelations with these words:
And I saw full securely in this and in all [the Revelations], that before God made us he loved us, which love was never satiated, nor ever shall be. And in this love he has done all his works, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us. And in this love our life is everlasting. In our creation, we had a beginning, but the love wherein he made us was in him from without beginning, in which love we have our beginning. And all this shall we see in God without end. Deo Gracias.
 
These seem to be the perfect words from Julian for Christmas: a much-needed reminder that we have been “in” the love of God from without beginning and so shall be without end. It is too vast and unimaginable to fathom. And yet, when we think of the little Babe of Bethlehem, the love of God becomes very, very real. And very, very close. We can hold God’s love in our arms. In our hearts. In the love we have for each other. In the compassion we feel for all those suffering throughout the world. For it is all one love.
 
May the newborn Child fill your hearts to overflowing with the love in which we are all created, sustained, and in which we dwell—like the very air we breathe. May he bless you with the joy and peace that the world cannot give—and cannot take away. May he enable you to see how “alle shalle be wele” precisely because God’s love will not have it any other way!
 
God is love and in his love, as Julian reminds us, God does all his works. He will see to it that everything becomes “profitable” to us, no matter how difficult or impossible that may seem to us right now. May we trust this Divine Love to heal, to renew, and to empower us from the depths of our soul to the heights of our great longing. And with Julian may we pray this Christmastime with full conviction: Deo Gracias—Thanks be to God!—for the Incarnation of Love.

I wish you all a Christmas full of unimaginable blessings and profound joy!


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

Julian's Prayer of Thanksgiving

11/19/2017

1 Comment

 
In meditating on the Fourteenth Revelation, Julian writes about the great importance of thanksgiving. But she does not talk about giving thanks for “things” or “health” or “success” or even being spared from disaster. She considers thanksgiving as a continual state of mind, “a true, inward knowing, with great reverence and lovely dread” (that is, awe in God’s presence). For Julian the prayer of thanksgiving is our ongoing act of worship.
 
Overwhelming
Julian reveals that sometimes this prayer of thanksgiving is so overwhelming that it breaks out in full voice saying: “Good lord, grant mercy, blessed may thou be!” It is a sudden realization of the sheer wonder of being alive, being loved, being liberated from sin, being blessed by God. Indeed, of simply being.
 
At other times, when the heart feels dry and empty, or else is undergoing temptations, Julian admits that then prayer “is driven by reason and by grace to cry aloud to our Lord, remembering his blessed passion and his great goodness.” In such times, she stresses the importance of remembering all the great works (such as the work of our salvation) that Christ has done for us in the past and is doing in the present and will continue to do in the future. We are to rejoice in them all – even those that have not yet happened.
 
Either in joy or in sorrow, Julian believes that when we remember in a spirit of thanksgiving, the power of the Lord enters the soul, enlivens the heart, begins a new spiritual work by means of grace, and enables the soul to pray more blissfully and to rejoice in him. “This is a very lovely thanking in his sight.” In fact, it is the essence of thanksgiving: to know in the depths of our soul from whom we receive our life, our breath, our courage, and our hope in every moment.
 
Giving Thanks
Let us give thanks for each other this Thanksgiving Day. Let us give thanks for specific blessings that have been bestowed upon us, and for all the times of fear and suffering that God has enabled us to survive. Let us also take time out from the hustle and bustle of preparations for the feast to spend time in silent contemplation in order to experience “a true, inward knowing, with great reverence and lovely dread.” Then, like Julian, we may feel an inspired prayer of joy-filled thanksgiving rise up in our hearts for the pure reality of God, the ground and source of all our reality:
And so the power of our Lord’s word converts the soul, and enlivens the heart, and initiates a true work of the soul by God’s grace, and make the soul able to pray most blissfully and truly to enjoy ourselves in our Lord. This is complete and lovely thanksgiving in his sight.

A blessed Thanksgiving to you all!

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

Was Julian of Norwich a Universalist?

10/21/2017

0 Comments

 
A number of people have asked if Julian was a Universalist; that is, if she believed that eventually everyone would be saved. In my book, “Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich,” I deal with various aspects of this crucial question, from early church teachings on predestination (inspired by St. Augustine) to medieval preaching on hell and damnation.
 
It was inevitable, given the world in which she lived, that Julian would be concerned about her “evencristens” (fellow Christians) who had sinned grievously and fallen away from the faith. In the Fourth Revelation, as Julian contemplates Christ bleeding on the cross, she envisions the outpouring of his blood as both “plenteous” and “precious,” precisely because it is the boundless blood of the Son of God. She remarks that it is also “our own nature” because it is very human blood, just like ours. And as precious as it is, so is it plenteous, sufficient to cleanse every and all sin, if only humankind will allow itself to be purified by it. She writes:
 
“Behold and see the virtue of this precious plenty of his dearworthy blood! It descended down into hell and burst their bonds and delivered them, all who were there who belong to the court of heaven. The precious plenty of his dearworthy blood overflows all the earth, and is ready to wash all creatures of sinne who are of good will, have been, and shall be. The precious plenty of his dearworthy blood ascends up into heaven in the blessed body of our lord Jesus Christ, and there is in him, bleeding, praying for us to the Father, and is and shall be as long as we need.”
 
In this paean of praise to the “precious plenty” of Christ’s “dearworthy blood,” Julian imagines the blood descending deep into the bowels of hell and rising up, in Christ’s resurrected body, into heaven. She even suggests that the resurrected Christ is still “bleeding” (that is, pouring out his blood metaphorically in heaven) as he prays unceasingly for humanity to the Father, for as long as we shall need . . .
 
From this Revelation, Julian understands that “the precious plenty” of Christ’s blood is ready to wash “all creatures of sinne who are of good will,” in times past and future. She makes no differentiation between evencristens and Jews or pagans, an extraordinary statement for her time. The first letter of Peter also taught that “Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God” (1 Pt 3:18). Various translations have suggested the original meaning of this letter is “once for all time,” or “once for all people.”
 
Nevertheless, Julian would not have dared prophesy “universal salvation” outright, as this would have been opposed to the medieval church’s teaching of salvation only for those who believe in Jesus Christ, were baptized, kept his commandments, and died in the state of grace. Nevertheless, Julian writes that the “precious plenty” of Christ’s salvific blood “overflows all the earth” with its perfect cleansing. In her inclusive interpretation, Julian implies that Christ’s outflowing blood will reach all and save all who are touched, in some mystical way, by its liberating power.
 
Julian completes this apocalyptic vision, seeing the blood of the Lamb of God as divine energy flowing evermore throughout heaven, “enjoying the salvation of all mankind that is there and shall be there, fulfilling the number that faileth” (12:24–25.169). This refers to the medieval belief that the predestined number of souls of the elect to be saved would equal the number of angels that had dropped out of heaven when, because of pride, Lucifer fell “like a flash of lightning” (Lk 10:18). According to St. Augustine, only God knows who and how many there will be.
 
Julian must have been haunted all her life by the thought of all those who had died during the Great Pestilence that wiped out half the population of Norwich—and one third the entire population of Europe. She also lived in a time of constant war, when soldiers and civilians died “unshriven,” with no opportunity to confess their sins and receive absolution. While Julian repeatedly attested that she saw “no wrath in God’ throughout her visions of Christ on the cross, she knew that the church taught we are all sinners and worthy of condemnation. This seemingly insoluble paradox weighed heavenly on her mind: how could “alle thing be wele” as Christ promised her, if even one soul were damned? In desperation, Julian begged Christ for understanding:
 
 “I cried inwardly with all my might, seeking into God for help, meaning thus: “Ah, lord Jesus, king of bliss, how shall I be eased? Who shall tell me and teach me what I need to know, if I may not at this time see it in thee?”
 
How should human beings consider themselves: as fully saved or justly condemned? It was a question that could not be put aside. This was not a scholastic issue, open to debate. There were people’s eternal lives involved: Julian’s, her family members, both living and deceased (some without benefit of the last rites of the church), friends, servants, all her evencristens from the lowliest peasants to the highest overlords, on up the social ladder to kings and queens and two popes, with the whole of Europe being torn apart by the brutalities of war and papal schism. If Julian was to go on living with some measure of divine comfort and reassurance, she had to know the answer to her question: How does God behold us in our sin?
 
Julian was answered in a visual and highly mysterious parable concerning a lord who had a servant. However, she did not understand the hidden meaning of the parable so she could not write about it until twenty years later—in her Long Text. There she gave a brilliant interpretation of who the lord was (God) and who the servant was (both Christ and Adam). In explicating the nuances of this profound story, Julian affirmed that:
 
 “Because of the rightful oneing [perfect union] which was made in heaven [between God and man], God’s Son might not be separated from Adam, for by Adam I understand all mankind.”
 
In stating this, Julian no longer differentiated between “them that shalle be saved” and the rest of humanity, that is, believers from non-believers, the righteous from sinners. Here I think she was writing in more universal terms, because this was the way in which she was taught by Christ to understand the import of the parable. She understood that there can be no essential separation between one man or woman and another. All are included in the appellative “Adam” (even Eve, since for Julian “Adam” includes both sexes), inasmuch as God became man to save all.
 
In her exegesis on the parable, Julian described the incarnation with poetic originality: God’s Son “fell with Adam into the hollow of the maiden’s womb” (even as, in the parable, the servant Adam fell into the hollow of the ditch). And because of this incarnation of God as perfect humanity, Adam, representing the whole of humanity, was purified in his fundamental nature, excused from blame both in heaven and on earth, and fetched out of his “hell.” Indeed, even though the Catholic Church has taught that there is a hell (as the necessary alternative to the concept of heaven), it has never stated officially that any single soul is actually “in” hell.
 
In “Julian’s Gospel,” I discuss many other aspects of this complex issue. But for now, let us ponder with Julian the astounding reality that, as she understood:

“our good lord Jesus has taken upon himself all our blame, and therefore our Father may not, nor will not, assign any more blame to us than to his own dearworthy son, Jesus Christ.”
 
PLEASE NOTE: The quotations above are from Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books), Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the written permission of the author.
0 Comments

The Ground of Thy Beseeching

9/26/2017

0 Comments

 
During her Revelations from Christ on the cross, Julian learned a great deal about about the nature of prayer. Especially in the Fourteenth Revelation, the Lord told Julian very clearly:
I am the ground of thy beseeching [in prayer]. First it is my will that thou have it, and next I make thee to will it, and next I make thee to beseech it—and thou beseechest it! How should it then be that thou shouldst not have thy beseeching?
 
In this astounding moment, the Lord completely inverts the idea that prayer is initiated in any way by Julian (or any one of us) with the Revelation that it is entirely his own idea! Jesus identifies himself as the instigator and basis of all prayer. First, in his great goodness, Christ wills to give Julian (or any one of us) some special grace. Then he makes her conscious of the desire for it, deep within her heart. Next, he inspires her and gives her the desire to enter into prayer in order to beseech it. And then, she actually does beseech it in her prayer.
 
Finally, Christ asks Julian the all-important rhetorical question: “How could it then be that you would not receive what you were beseeching me for?” (since it was Christ himself who conceived the grace he wanted to give Julian in the first place). Of course, this Revelation assumes that what Julian will be led to pray for will be to her most immediate benefit, as well as her eternal salvation, and will bring the greatest blessings upon those for whom she prays. The same holds true for us.
 
Thus Julian became convinced that when we pray it is in response to God’s desire to grant what we most urgently need. Our prayers of beseeching do not cause graces and gifts to come to us from God. It is God’s own goodness, the ground of all that is, that initiates every good thing he ever chooses to give us. He is ready to give before we even ask.
 
A Mighty Comfort
Julian experienced “a mighty comfort” in receiving this divine illumination. She realized that the refusal of the Lord to grant our heartfelt prayer would be, in her delightful Middle English word, “unpossible”:
For it is the most unpossible [greatest impossibility] that may be that we should seek mercy and grace and not have it. For every thing that our good lord makes us beseech, he himself has ordained it to us from without beginning.
 
As a result of this Revelation, Julian experienced prayer in an entirely new and radically hope-filled way. She became certain that Christ wants all his “lovers on earth” to know how intimately he directs our prayer, because “the more that we know, the more shall we beseech,” if we understand this teaching wisely, as our Lord intends.

Frustration in Prayer
Yet how often we beseech God for good things for ourselves, our loved ones, and for all those suffering in our world, yet seem to receive no answer, no clarification, no help! Then we become disheartened, maybe even disillusioned with prayer. And then we stop praying. Julian ascribes our loss of faith in prayer to a lack of trust:
Oftentimes our trust is not full. For we are not certain that God hears us, and we think it is because of our unworthiness, and because we feel nothing at all.

Julian assures us that the feeling (or lack of feeling) we experience in prayer has no bearing on the depth or sincerity of our great longing. And that longing is itself Christ’s own prayer in us. 
Moreover, Julian  became convinced that when we have prayed a long time and yet not received what we have asked for, we should not become depressed. She is certain that "either we must wait for a better time, or more grace, or a better gift." All the while, we must trust "mightily" that Christ is always at work, in us, in everyone we love, in the whole world, even if we cannot see it happening. Julian adds:
For if we do not trust as much as we pray, we do not give the fullest worship to our lord in our prayer, and also we hinder and trouble ourselves.

Indeed, persistent trust in prayer opens our minds and hearts wider and wider so that we may become more capable of receiving the graces that the Lord wants to give us and everyone for whom we pray. Thus we must
never give up praying, precisely because we trust that the Lord’s initiation of our prayer is already the guarantee of its answer:
Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you (Mt 7:7).

PLEASE NOTE: The quotations above are from Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books), Copyright © 2013 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. This article may not be copied or reprinted without the written permission of the author.
0 Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    Archives

    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    A Call To Arms!
    Acts Of Peace
    Affirmation
    A Marvelous Mixture
    America Magazine Interview With The Pope
    A Mighty Comfort
    A Mother's Service
    And Trust
    Ash Wednesday
    Assumption Of Mary
    A Universalist?
    Authenticity Of Mystical Revelations
    A Vision Of Christ
    Being Loved
    Chosen By Love
    Christ
    Christmas Love
    Christ On The Cross
    Christ Our Mother
    Christ's Children
    Christ's Thirst On The Cross
    Christ's Werking In Us
    Contemplative Beholding
    Cultivating Joy
    Daring To Believe
    Do Not Despair
    Don't Blame God
    Enclosed And Aware
    Giving Birth
    Giving Thanks
    God's Mercy And Julian
    God's Unconditional Love
    Grace
    Hanging On To Hope
    Help In The Storm
    Holy Church Shall Be Shaken
    How Can "All Things Be Made Well?"
    How Julian Understood God
    Image And Likeness Of God
    Impact Of Evil
    Julian
    Julian And Lent
    Julian And The Pope
    Julian Of Norwich
    Julian's Advice
    Julian's Cure
    Julian's Feast Day
    Julian's Healing
    Julian's Suffering World
    Julian's Three Gifts
    Lenten Longing
    Lent & "Noughting"
    Longing And Pity
    Love
    Loved By God
    Love Is The Meaning
    Love Longing
    Love-longing
    Making Julian's Revelations Relevant
    Mary's Humility
    Meditation
    Mind Of The Passion
    Mystics
    Need For God
    Not Guns
    No Wrath In God
    Our Godly Will
    Our Mother
    Our Spiritual Work
    Our Tragic World
    Our Whole Life In Love
    Persistence In Prayer
    Prayer As Response
    Prayer Of Petition
    Prayer Of Thanksgiving
    Praying For Everything
    Praying Through Lent
    Prince Of Peace
    Problem Of Evil
    Pursuit Of Happiness
    Reassurance
    Resting In God
    Reverent Beholding
    Rightful Fear
    Secureness And Delight
    Seek
    Spiritual Transformation
    Suffer
    Suffering And Sin
    Suffering Mother
    Tenth-revelation
    Thanksgiving
    The Blood Of Christ
    The Blood Of Martyrs
    The Divine Names
    The Glad Giver
    The Glad Receiver
    The Godly Will
    The Ground Of Thy Beseeching
    The Joy Of Resurrection
    The Mind Of Christ
    The Passion Of Christ
    The People Of God
    The Prodigal Mother
    The Undervalued Virtue Of Patience
    Three Revelations About Mary
    Times Of Trouble
    Trust And Faith
    Types Of Fear
    Types Of Mystical Revelations
    What Is A Mystical Experience
    Why Julian Now?
    Wordless Prayer
    World Suffering
    Www.onethousandactsofpeace.org

    RSS Feed

    -amazon.com/author/veronicamaryrolf

    All text copyrighted © 2013-2018 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. No copying or reprints allowed without the express permission of the Author.
    Protected by Copyscape Plagiarism Detector
    Picture
All text copyrighted © 2013-2019 by Veronica Mary Rolf. All rights reserved. No copying or reprints allowed without the express permission of the Author.​​
  • Julian's Voice
  • Who was Julian of Norwich?
  • About the Author: Veronica Mary Rolf
  • Veronica's Blog on Julian
  • Meditating with Julian
  • A Retreat with Julian
  • Julian Retreat Schedule
  • Julian Retreat Photos
  • Book Reviews for "An Explorer's Guide to Julian of Norwich
  • Book Reviews for "Julian's Gospel"
  • Book Awards for "Julian's Gospel"
  • Videos, Podcasts & Articles about Veronica Mary Rolf
  • Contact Veronica