The Lessons of Julian of Norwich in Revelations of Divine Love
In the year 1373, Julian of Norwich, an English mystic and the first autobiographical writer in England, received a total of sixteen revelations as she lay deathly ill after praying to Our Lord for three things. The first was that she could have a deeper and better understanding of His Passion; the second was that she, while still a young woman, would receive such a terrible illness from God so as to unite herself with Our Lord’s suffering, and to be at the point of death (although she did not want to undergo death before uniting herself more closely with God) in order to receive the anointing of the sick. The third and final prayer was the prayer to receive three wounds from Christ, namely, "the wound of true contrition; the wound of genuine compassion; and the wound of sincere longing for God.” Her prayer was answered and the divine love of Christ was presented to Julian during her illness at the age of thirty-one.
Julian’s work is overall quite remarkable. She provides reflections on her revelations, placing great emphasis on the beauty of the love of God while offering thoughts of her own perplexity of the matter of evil. Through her revelations of Christ’s passion, she received the knowledge of the always-present love and profound mercy of God. Julian, in her first revelation, sees the crown of thorns on the precious head of Our Lord and recognizes the humility and amazing love Christ showed to the world through this action. Furthermore, she relates that “to know the goodness of God is the highest prayer of all,” and goes on to write, “we shall never cease wanting and longing until we posses Him in fullness and joy.” This is her first lesson: that all who follow this desire in their hearts and love God will see Him, recognizing their own humility and nothingness while understanding the goodness of God and His abundant love. Another lesson in the first revelation is to strive for the humility of Our Lady, and that we need the faith, hope, and love she held within her whole being to receive God’s grace in life.
In the second revelation, Julian sees the beauty of God’s redeeming act, saying, too, that our lesson is to seek God in all things, “wait on Him,” and trust in Him with all our hearts. This, she says, will truly please Him. She explains, “By this faith He makes us ever to gain grace.” The third revelation focuses on the mercy and grace of God with regards to the matter of sin in the world created by God Who is perfect and all good and cannot create anything evil. Julian presents questions about sin, stating she is utterly puzzled by it, but her conclusion is that in the end, God will, as told to her, make all things well. She states that God is a loving Father, loving His creation and forever upholding all that He has made. She explains that although sin may occur, God can never be angry for if that were the case, He would not be showing love to His creatures and as a result, they would die without His love. She questions it again in a later revelation, however, only to become more puzzled in her attempt to comprehend the matter.
The fourth revelation also deals with sin, yet Julian explains beautifully of the forgiveness and mercy of God. Her lesson in this revelation is to teach us that by the Precious Blood of Our Lord which he poured out for love of us on the cross we shall be washed clean from our sins. She writes, “for ever it flows in heaven, rejoicing to save mankind, such as there are already and those who are yet to come, making up the number of saints.” The fifth revelation consists of the lesson of learning to overcome temptation by the devil through the passion of Jesus Christ. She says that no matter how hard the devil may work to tempt a soul to perform an evil act, if a person desires to be washed clean by Christ’s Blood, all temptation will be gone and God’s love will prevail. In the sixth revelation we see Julian’s joy at the gratitude presented by God for a soul’s suffering for Him, in union with Him. She teaches in this revelation that God is pleased at the willingness and duration of service to Christ and that reward will be great. Julian presents in the lesson that even in times of despondency, which she experienced during this particular revelation, one must never allow Himself to be separated from the love of Christ. She states that we must want the will of God which is “that we should know He keeps us safely, alike in weal or woe,” knowing that God sometimes permits the soul, out of love, to experience suffering in order to become more united with Christ.
This is carried further in the eighth revelation when she sees the pitiful suffering of Christ as He dies on the cross and the thirst He has, as well as the reasons for His thirst. She said the thirst was both physical and spiritual in that He was physically in want of water as His precious lips were dry, but also in the spiritual sense in that all who love Christ want to suffer with Him and He is pleased with souls who suffer and thirst for Him, loving Him so greatly and having hope to be united to Him in His pain and agony. Julian describes how Our Lady suffered with her Son and says that while we suffer with Him, there is much comfort in beholding the face of Christ on the crucifix, and His look “banishes pain.” She says that in choosing and suffering with Jesus, in thirsting for Him, one’s “own intention is deliberately and eternally set on being united to Our Lord Jesus.”
Julian offers to us yet again the opportunity to seek the grace of God and to rejoice over our redemption in the ninth revelation. She relates her vision of Jesus saying to her, "If I could possibly have suffered more, I would have done so," and she sees this as the greatest gesture God could make to the soul of man. She says that by the words of Christ saying He would have done more, He meant "How could I not, out of love for you, do all I can for you?" Her lesson: follow the will of God, and it is His will that we should delight with Him in our salvation, being comforted and strengthened immensely. By His passion, "God has brought us out from the eternal pain of hell." He desires for us to be one with Him in heaven. The tenth revelation reminds us more of the redeeming act and teaches the world to see how Christ has loved us by dying on the cross, which is the greatest act of love the world has known. Julian describes the revelation in which the Mother of Christ is revealed next. Julian's lesson in this revelation is the following: "...I am not expected to want to see her physically present here on earth, but rather to see the virtues of her blessed soul, her truth, her wisdom, her charity, so that I can learn to know myself, and reverently fear my God."
Within the next two revelations, Julian's philosophical and theological notions of God being the Creator of all that there is and that evil does not truly exist are spot on with Church teaching. She states that God can only create good and that sin, a privation of the good, is only known by the pain and suffering it causes. She says that this sin "purges us and makes us know ourselves, so that we ask for mercy." Julian touches once again on the matter of evil and sin and her perplexity at the notion of it. It is here, however, that her neo-platonist ideas come into play. She somewhat ominously states in one concluding thought on matters of this revelation that "all will be alright" in the end and that we will all eventually rejoice in Heaven with God. She does shed light on the importance in wanting always to do the will of God, and by doing so, we will be conforming our will to His will, and this shall please Him and He will reward us, but she says again that in the end "everything will be alright." By saying this again, she gives the implication that there is no reason for any soul to be damned to hell.
In the final three revelations, Julian continues to offer lessons on the importance of praying for mercy, the importance of prayer and how "even in aridity" prayer is pleasing to God, and additionally teaches us to rejoice over our patient enduring of trouble. Within these final revelations, however, questions arise in the mind of the reader as to what Julian meant by stating that "[i]n every soul to be saved is a godly will that has never consented to sin, in the past or in the future. Just as there is an animal will in our lower nature that does not will what is good, so there is a godly will in our higher part, which by its basic goodness never wills what is evil, but only what is good."
All in all, the revelations and lessons of Julian of Norwich are quite remarkable and continue to influence Christian thought to this day. There are, however, many questions one must ask when reading this text. It is important to note that Julian was aware that she was still perplexed with regards to certain matters, and thus it is important to be attentive in reading, making sure to read under the guidance of Church teaching on matters of sin, separation from God, and the reality of hell.
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