Mother Julian of Norwich's feast day is tomorrow, when we travel virtually with the blog on our few days holiday and when we recall V.E day and there will be many tributes and thanksgivings in our homes and socially distanced on our front gardens and in our streets..
So slightly ahead of the actual date I am delighted to share some thoughts by our own Philip Morris:
Saint of the Month
8 May: Mother Julian of Norwich
The pandemic started in China. It was carried to all parts of the world by travellers. Millions were infected. Many died. It caused social and financial upheaval.
No, I am not writing about the present Coronavirus pandemic, but of the Black Death of the 14th century, which was brought into Britain through traders coming from the East along the Silk route. Among those who died in England were the husband and children of a lady whose actual name we do not know, but who has become known as Mother Julian of Norwich. Following her family’s death, Julian became an anchoress, and went into self-isolation, living in a little room that was built into the wall of St Julian’s Church in Norwich. She spent her time praying for the people of Norwich and beyond during those difficult times; people would come to her for advice and spiritual counsel, but had to keep their distance, speaking through a small hole in the wall.
Julian featured as last year’s May Saint of the Month, but her life and her writings are so relevant and meaningful in our situation today. She knew and experienced the frailty of nature and of our own frailty as human beings. She looked at a hazelnut, and wrote: “And in this God showed me this little thing, lying in the palm of my hand. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvelled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.
In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.”
For Julian that gave her the certainly that even in darkest of times, it is God’s love that ‘keeps us’. Living through suffering, she believed in the love, hope and power of the Resurrection. In this, Julian writes, God shows that “he loves us and delights in us, and so he wishes us to love him and delight in him and trust greatly in him – and all will be well.”
All will be well.
Philip Morris
Thank you Philip for sharing this with the blog. It is true, all will be well!
In May 1373, a 30 and a half year-old woman lay dying. A local priest arrived to give her the last rites and held a crucifix in front of her. In that moment, however, the woman—Julian of Norwich— experienced a series of visions, ranging from graphic details of Christ’s passion to an image of a humble hazelnut. When she miraculously recovered from her illness, this experience formed the basis for Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love, the first book in English which is known to have been authored by a woman. This book continues to be studied and to challenge theologians today. In particular, Julian is famous for her extended comparison of God to a mother:
'when [a child] is hurt or frightened it runs to its mother for help as fast as it can; and [God] wants us to do the same, like a humble child, saying, "My kind Mother, my gracious Mother, my dearest Mother, take pity on me"'
(trans. by Elizabeth Spearing, Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love (London: Penguin 1998), p. 144).