Julian's Feast Day!

Today, May 8th, is the 651st Feast Day of the Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich. Let us rejoice that we are privileged to read and meditate on these incomparable Revelations that have reverberated through the ages and brought so much wisdom, guidance, and peace of mind to those who take them to heart.

Near the end of her Long Text, Julian advises those seeking her help that if we flee to our Lord he will comfort us; if we touch him “we shall be made clean,” if we “cleave to him” we shall be seker [safe] from whatever peril could harm us . . . Julian assures us that “our courteous lord wills that we be as homely [intimate] with him as heart may think or soul may desire. . .”

She summarizes four things that the Lord, in his graciousness, wants us to know. First, he is our ground, from whom and through whom “we have all our very life and our very being.” Second, he protects us powerfully and with the greatest mercy, even when we are mired in our confusion, beset by all our enemies from within and without, as in the midst of a great battle. (She adds that when we give our enemies an opening to take advantage of us, we are in such dire peril that we do not even realize how great is our need.) The third is how courteously “he keeps [protects] us and makes us know that we go amiss.” He is, after all, our watchful Mother. And the fourth is how faithfully he waits for us and does not alter his expression or attitude toward us, “for he wills that we be turned and oned [united] to him in love as he is to us.”

This beautiful depiction of God’s infinite courtesy toward the sinner would strain the bounds of human belief had it not arisen from Julian’s personal experience of Christ on the cross. There she watched him suffering his agony without ever once changing his expression from love to anger. She knows for certain that this is the true countenance of God. And she is sure that if we commit these four realities to our hearts, we will be able to see even our sin as potentially profitable, and not fall into despair. As always, this does not mean we overlook the scourge of sin. We need to acknowledge it, and at the sight of its horror become truly ashamed of ourselves, admit our pride and our presumption, and admit that we are, in truth, “nothing but sin and wretchedness . . .”

Also our courteous lord, in that same time, he shewed full sekerly [confidently] and full mightily the endlessness and the unchangeability of his love. And also, by his great goodness and his grace inwardly keeping us, he shewed that the love between him and our souls shall never be separated in two without end. And thus in the dread [of sin], I have matter for humility, that saves me from presumption. And in the blessed shewing of love, I have matter of true comfort and joy, that saves me from despair.

Yet again, Julian wants to impress upon the reader that Christ’s love is eternal and can not, will not, change. He continually protects us and remains with us so that his love and our love will never be parted. And in this “blessed shewing of love” (which is in all the Revelations), Julian discovers a source of exquisite consolation and deepest joy that keeps her from ever despairing over her own sinfulness.

All this homely shewing of our courteous lord, it is a lovely lesson and a sweet gracious teaching by himself for the comforting of our soul. For he wills that we know, by the sweetness of his homely love, that all that we see or feel, within or without, which is contrarious to this [lesson], that it is of the enemy, and not of God.

Julian conceives of Christ still standing all alone, as piteously and mournfully as when he was on earth, in anticipation of our homecoming. He is most impatient to “have us for himself, for we are his joy and his delight, and he is our salvation and our life.”

On this auspicious Feast Day, let us thank Julian for her life of faith, prayer, trust, and love, as well her willingness to undergo the great labor of writing down her Revelations for her evencristens and future generations. May Julian bless us all abundantly with peace of mind and heart. Happy Feast Day, Julian!
Note: Quotations above and translations from Julian's Middle English are from my book: Julian's Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books).