The Heart of Julian's Theology
Julian's Theology
Equally important:
The mother's service is nearest, readiest and surest…. No one ever might or could perform this office fully, except only him.
In general, Mother Jesus' love for humans is compared to the tenderness and compassion that a human mother has towards her child.
Also in chapter 60, Julian compares the nourishment of the human soul through the Eucharist to the nurturing function of motherhood. Mother
Jesus feeds us (as a human mother suckles her child) with the blessed sacrament of the Eucharist. A mother also lays her child tenderly on her breast while Mother Jesus opens up his wounded side to draw us in.
Overall, Julian compares Jesus's suffering in the Passion with the pains of childbirth. In this selfless act, Mother Jesus had "born us for bliss."
Yet in chapter 61, a mother may sometimes suffer a child to fall for its own learning and benefit. Yet Mother Jesus never suffers "any kind of peril to come to her child." Equally, Mother Jesus "may never suffer us who are his children to perish." Mother Jesus wants us to act like children with a human mother: running to him in need and calling for help.
In chapter 63, the idea of Christ our Mother taking on human fleshliness and giving of himself is compared to the human mother giving of her bodily self to the fetus in the womb. Overall, the "office" of Mother
Jesus is to ease us and to save us.
By way of conclusion, I think that it is important to underline that, as Grace Jantzen suggests, we may describe Julian's theology as "practical" in that there is a clear emphasis on the practicalities of human life.
However, in her writings Julian does not fall into the trap of seeking to be simplistically "relevant."
The Heart of Julian's Theology What is the heart of Julian's theology? Classic approaches to what may be called "doctrinal theology" are not really present in Julian in any organized sense. In terms of the dimensions of theology on which Julian reflects, she explores profoundly the nature of God‐as‐Trinity but in ways that are founded upon her Christology at the heart of which lies her visions of Christ's suffering on the cross. Other important themes are those of sin and salvation, her theology of human identity (theological anthropology), and her distinctly non‐apocalyptic eschatology. While
Church and sacraments are mentioned, these themes are not developed at length. Ecclesiology is only important to Julian in relation to the authority of Holy Church and its teachings in the light of Julian's