The Foundations of Prayer
The Foundations of Prayer
which matches God's desire for us. At the heart of this relationship is an assurance, and regular moments of reassurance, that we are irrevocably embraced by love.
Thus, in her Long Text, chapter 24, in the context of her vision of Jesus' wounded side, with "his blessed heart split in two" and his blood "shed for love," Julian is reassured by the words "see how I love you." Thus, prayer becomes a continual revelation of endless love:
How could it now be that you would pray to me for anything pleasing to me which I would not very gladly grant to you? For my delight is in your holiness and in your endless joy and bliss in me.
The nature of prayer‐as‐relationship is also an experience of healing, not least the healing of our flawed self‐understanding. In chapter 40 "our courteous Lord" not only shows "supreme friendship" by protecting us tenderly even in our sinfulness. When we are moved to prayer because
"we see ourselves so foul" and "believe that God may be angry with us because of our sins," then "our courteous Lord" shows himself to the human soul "welcoming it as a friend…saying: My dear darling, I am glad that you have come to me in all your woe. I have always been with you, and now you see me loving, and we are made one in bliss."
Finally, this relationship, in which we long for and seek God through the medium of prayer, is never an experience of being consistently united with God in this present life. "So I saw him and sought him, and I had him and lacked him; and this is and should be our ordinary undertaking in this life, as I see it" (chapter 10).
The Foundations of Prayer At the heart of Julian's teaching about prayer‐as‐relationship is the powerful image of longing and desire. "Desire" is the dynamic that drives our life‐long relationship with God. In her chapter 40 Julian expresses something similar to the famous words of The Cloud of Unknowing, chapter 2: "Now you have to stand in desire all your life long."3 Because we cannot be completely at peace while we are here in this present life
"therefore it is fitting for us to live always in sweet prayer and in loving longing with our Lord Jesus."
This notion of a desire for God appears early in Julian's Long Text.
"God, of your goodness give me yourself, for you are enough for me"
(chapter 5). The immediate context of this request by Julian appears at first sight to be a critique of the human tendency to give too much attention to contingent reality ("something small, no bigger than a hazelnut")
Prayer: A Journey of Desire
rather than focusing primarily on God. However, at a deeper level the chapter shows how Julian is led to understand two positive realities. First, in her vision of the bleeding head of Christ in the Passion, she is shown
"a spiritual sight" of God's intimate love. God, as revealed in the suffering Christ, is "everything which is good and comforting for our help." God not only wishes to be known but seeks to be our rest and that we become
"substantially united to him." Thus, second, God desires that we "have him who is everything." This is the basis for what Julian refers to as "the loving yearning of the soul" in response to God's own desire to fill us, restore us, and preserve us.
While Julian's main teachings about prayer‐as‐relationship, as revealed to her by God, appear in chapters 41–43 there is an important prelude in chapter 40. Here, as we have already seen, Julian suggests that initially we may be moved to prayer out of contrition because "we may see ourselves so foul" because of our sins. Julian indicates that initially she shared in this human experience. However, God welcomed
Julian with the words "my dear darling." You may, like Julian, come to God "in all your woe" but we are all led on from this to repose in love, assurance, and the promise of bliss. Because we cannot experience completely everything good "whilst we are here," we are bound "to live always in sweet prayer and in loving longing with our Lord Jesus." Then our Lord Jesus revealed to Julian his own "spiritual thirst," or longing, to bring us to the fullness of joy.
It was after this that, according to chapter 41, "our Lord revealed about prayer." This begins the main teachings that Julian wishes to pass on to all her fellow Christians. At the outset, Julian sets out two fundamental characteristics (or "conditions") of prayer "in our lords mening", that is, from God's viewpoint. The first is "rightfulle prayer," or the spirit of prayer, properly understood as Julian outlines later in the chapter. The second is "seker trust," prayer as an expression of confident or certain trust in God. After these two important foundations, Julian proceeds with her teaching as she believed it had been revealed to her by God.
In the remainder of chapter 41, Julian first identifies with the common human experience that we sometimes feel nothing in prayer. In her words, we feel as barren and dry after prayer as we did before. We think that this is the result of our unworthiness. However, Julian goes on to say that God clearly revealed to her that our Lord is the "grounde of thy beseking" – that is, the cause of our entering into prayer. It is important to be clear that "beseke" is not just a word for prayer or specifically for petition or beseeching. It also implies the sense of "to seek," or "to search for." God desires this relationship. God then makes us desire it and so we seek it. Thus, as God reveals to Julian, if our Lord is the foundation of prayer how could we not have what we pray for? Everything that God "maketh us to beseke"
The Foundations of Prayer
(to seek) is God's own desire for us from all eternity. In summary, God is the ground or foundation of our prayer‐as‐relationship.
Such "beseking" or seeking is an enduring aspect of our relationship with God in prayer. Our Lord assures Julian that he accepts our prayer and "sends it up above" where it becomes part of the divine treasure house (no doubt echoing the Gospel of Matthew 6, 20) "where it will never perish." Our eternal bliss is guaranteed. By implication, this is true even when we feel nothing in prayer. God instructs Julian to pray wholeheartedly ("interly") even if there is "no savour." Stick with it, trust, and believe that our Lord is in our prayer. In fact, the best prayer is in weakness, presumably because it implies greater trust. The assurance that our
Lord accepts our prayer implies that our relationship with God is direct and intimate rather than with a distant lordly God and therefore necessarily via intermediaries.
If "our work in prayer and in good living" is actively understood to be "by his help and his grace" it will be "with discretion" – that is, with discernment. The implication is that prayer‐as‐relationship should be moderate and balanced rather than excessive, oppressive, or over‐exuberant.
Chapter 41 ends with Julian teaching that "thanksgiving also belongs to our prayer." This is another aspect of "rightful" prayer and is also based on God moving us interiorly. Again, thanksgiving in prayer is not merely a practice but is an attitude expressing, in another form, our fundamental trust in God's care and God's power. "And so the power of our Lord's word enters the soul and enlivens the heart and it begins by his grace faithful exercise, and makes the soul to pray most blessedly, and truly to rejoice in our Lord." This is what true thanksgiving means.
Julian begins her second section on prayer, chapter 42, with the thought that our Lord wants us to have "true understanding" in and through our relationship of prayer. This thought acts as a reminder of, and further underlines, three crucial things that she had taught in the previous chapter.
First, our prayer originates in God. Our Lord says "First, it is my will [desire]." God is the "ground" of our prayer. The second crucial thing concerns how our prayer is "performed." This performance is not a matter of how prayer is practiced but implies that our "wille," our wish or desire, comes from God. So we need to bring our wishes or desires into conscious alignment with God's wish or desire. The use of "wille" may well echo the phrase "Thy will be done" in the Our Father prayer but in the context of Julian "wille" is not an authoritarian image but the wish and desire of a loving God. Finally, we need to understand the purpose of prayer‐as‐relationship and where that relationship leads. We are to be "oned and like to our lorde in althing." That is, we are being led to the point of being united with, in union with, and wholly identified with our Lord. Again, this is not authoritarian but is a "loving lesson" based on God's desire "to help us."
Prayer: A Journey of Desire
God's will and desire is that our prayer (and our trust in God) "be both alike large." That is, it should be generous and possibly ambitious rather than cautious or uncertain. Our trust in God should be as wide as our prayer as a whole. Otherwise we do not pay full honour to our Lord. To pay honour is to realise, live within, and respond to God's desire.
Otherwise "we tary and paine ourselfe" – that is, we impede and trouble ourselves. This is because we do not fully understand that God is the "ground" – that is, the source and guarantee – of our prayer. If we really and truly grasped that prayer comes from God's action and love we would trust that all our deep desire is a gift of God. We desire it because God desires it in us and for us and therefore we will receive it.
However, there is sometimes a problem. On occasions we feel that we have prayed long and hard yet we do not have our desire. Julian teaches that we must not get too depressed by this experience. The meaning must be that "either we are waiting for a better occasion, or more grace, or a better gift." Behind all this is God's desire that we truly have an understanding of how God is and how God works. "He is being." That is,
God is fundamental reality. We are "to take our place and our dwelling in this foundation." Implicitly Julian is teaching her fellow Christians that we are to make complete trust in God the foundation of our life.
God wishes us to grasp three crucial things. The first is "our noble and excellent making." The second is "our precious and lovable redemption."
The third reflects the rather anthropocentric medieval understanding of the created order that everything God has created that is "inferior to us" is nevertheless protected for love of us. God reassures Julian that all this was done "before your prayer" – that is, it is not dependent on our prayers. We should contemplate this with thanksgiving and also pray for "the deed which is now being done." That is, God guides us to his glory in this life and also brings us to his bliss. Thus God has done everything already. God wants us to see this and therefore not to be doubting or depressed. In terms of our relationship of prayer, God desires that we pray for, and live within, everything God has ordained even though this is beyond our understanding in this life.
Julian describes prayer as "a right understanding" of the fullness of joy which is to come. This approach to prayer is fundamentally relational rather than instrumental. True longing and trust are the two foundations of prayer‐as‐relationship as Julian is shown by God and as she teaches her fellow Christians. The "failing of our blisse" to which we are destined implies a partial seeing but also incompleteness. Therefore we are led to long and to desire even more. "In these two werkings" – that is our actions of longing and of trust – are our duty. So we are to work diligently on both. Yet we are always aware that what we do is really nothing. While this is true, we are nevertheless to do what we can and to trust that