Contrition and Comfort

Dear Friends,
In the Thirteenth Revelation, Julian of Norwich writes:
Sinne is the sharpest scourge that any chosen soul may be smitten with. Which scourge beats down man and woman, and also breaks him, and disgusts him in his own sight—so much so that sometimes he thinks himself not worthy, except as it were to sink into hell—till contrition takes him by the touching of the holy ghost, and turns the bitterness into hope of God’s mercy. And then his wounds begin to heal and the soul to revive, turned into the life of holy church. The holy ghost leads him to confession, willfully to show his sinnes, nakedly and truly, with great sorrow and with great shame that he hath so defouled the fair image of God. Then he undertakes the penance for every sinne, enjoined by his confessor, that is grounded in holy church by the teaching of the holy ghost.

This passage is a completely orthodox description of the three conditions the church teaches are necessary for forgiveness: contrition for sin, confession to a priest, performance of a penance. It is also the personal admission of a woman who knew the “scourge of sinne” firsthand, who had suffered the shame, the pain, and the near-despair of having spoiled the image of God within her soul. It is, finally, the testimony of a person who has felt the sweet inspiration of grace to confess her sins, experience forgiveness, and willingly perform a penance. Making confession to a priest was (and is) deemed essential by the church for the absolution of mortal sins and was strongly prescribed for the forgiveness of all lesser, venial sins . . .

Julian identifies penance as one form of meekness “that greatly pleases God,” and “bodily sickness of God’s sending” as another. As a young girl, Julian requested just such an illness out of an ardent desire to become more like Christ. Now she adds that public humiliations such as outward sorrow and shame, condemnations and being despised by the world, are also forms of overt penance. She even considers temptations to bodily sins (lechery, gluttony, sloth) and spiritual sins (pride, envy, anger, covetousness) as being types of suffering, as did the customary teachings of her time. Through them all, however, Julian affirms that the good Lord protects the soul, even when we seem to be nearly forsaken and cast out by everyone else because of sin, and even though we recognize that we deserve what we suffer. Affliction fosters humility, which leads, by God’s grace, to honor in heaven . . .

The fact is, Julian was freed from sin by confessing her sins to a priest on her deathbed and receiving the last rites of the church. She was cured of her fatal illness and relieved of physical pain during the time of her visions. And, in her periods of total ecstasy, she was taken up into heaven in her mind and heart, and for those blissful moments “made even” to the saints. Such is the union in love that mystics enjoy on rare occasions in this life and which they predict will occur at the moment of death.
By contrition we are made clean, by compassion we are made ready, and by true longing for God we are made worthy. These are three means, as I understand, whereby all souls come to heaven—that is to say, who have been sinners on earth and shall be saved.

At one point, Julian was shown that she would sin and she experienced “a soft dread.” Yet our Lord reassured her: “I keep thee full sekerly” [I protect thee in complete security]. She writes:
This word was said with more love and sekernesse of ghostly [spiritual] keeping than I can or may tell. For as it was shown to me before that I should sinne, right so was the comfort shown; sekernesse of keeping [protection] for all mine evencristens.

As we near Ash Wednesday and the penitential Season of Lent, let us examine those misdeeds or patterns of behavior that keep us from being totally centered in the love of Christ in our hearts. May we be led to confess with sincere contrition and so experience the grace of the Lord’s forgiveness, as Julian did. Then we will truly rejoice in our Lenten practices and penances, and in the great comfort of the Lord’s “sekernesse of protection” in every aspect of our lives.
Lenten Blessings,
Veronica
NOTE: Quotations translated from the Middle English and excerpts above are from my book, Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Orbis Books)