Yesterday, May 8, we commemorated the feast day of Dame Julian of Norwich, who is the first woman we know of to have written a book in English. She was born in 1342 in England, and lived during a time of upheaval that included famine, revolts, and the Black Plague. When she was thirty, she became gravely ill and was expected to die. Just after receiving last rites, she began having a series of mystical visions of Christ suffering on the cross. The experience brought her great comfort and joy, and she wrote the visions down in a book called Revelations of Divine Love. She later became an anchorite, living in a tiny cell attached to the church Norwich, and she developed a reputation as a wise spiritual counselor.
From her visions, Julian had an optimistic outlook on the suffering in our lives. Christ showed her that sin had no real substance and that the meaning of everything was Love. The visions led her to conclude, in her oft-quoted line, “All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.”
She has also been an important voice for breaking open the predominantly patriarchal language used for the Divine through the centuries. A lovely example of her writing is found in one of the canticles from Enriching Our Worship – A Song of Our True Nature:
Christ revealed our frailty and our falling, *
our trespasses and our humiliations.
Christ also revealed his blessed power, *
his blessed wisdom and love.
He protects us as tenderly and as sweetly when we are in greatest need; *
he raises us in spirit
and turns everything to glory and joy without ending.
God is the ground and the substance, the very essence of nature; *
God is the true father and mother of natures.
We are all bound to God by nature, *
and we are all bound to God by grace.
And this grace is for all the world, *
because it is our precious mother, Christ.
For this fair nature was prepared by Christ
for the honor and nobility of all, *
and for the joy and bliss of salvation.
Amen!
