Christmas Love

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.