Introduction
INTRODUCTION
/h her one major work, The Showings of the Love of God, also referred to as Revelations of Divine Love,
Julian of Norwich shares with us her remarkable insights into the soul and the spiritual life. While her mystical writing has become a famous and oft-read classic of spiritual literature, she herself remains a figure shrouded in mystery. From her ShoM^ings, we glean but a few historical details of her life, for it was not her purpose to speak of herself but to tell of the series of visions she received from God. Yet, despite the relative anonymity in which she is hidden, her deeply moving reflections have enabled us all to know this visionary and mystic in a way much more profound than any biographical details could convey. In her work we find a wisdom that has spoken to the hearts of spiritual seekers throughout the ages.
Although almost certainly not her real name, Julian was probably so called even during her life according to the custom that an anchoress adopt the name of the church with which she was associated. Julian lived in an anchorhold attached to the Church of St. Julian in
Norwich, England, although it is not clear exactly when she retired to the anchorhold. Restricted to the confines of her cell, her life in the anchorhold consisted of days spent in prayer and contemplation of God. The solitude of the anchoress, however, was not total. She had contact with a priest and with a trustworthy servant or two who attended to her domestic affairs. In addition, an anchoress was often sought out for guidance and consultation. Many anchorholds, including Julian's, possessed a small window allowing limited access to the outside world. Historical evidence suggests that Julian, having a reputation for holiness even during her lifetime, was often visited by those seeking her counsel and advice.
The testimony found in Julian's Showings, while divulging few details of her everyday routine, gives us insight into the more spiritual aspects of her life. She relates in the opening chapters that when she was younger she had prayed for three things specifically.
The first prayer was for a vision of Christ's passion so that she could know better his sufferings and "might have suffered with him as others did who loved him."
The second request was for a severe illness that would bring her near death and break within her any attach-
ment toward earthly things, enabling her to cultivate a greater awareness of lasting values and to increase her focus on Christ. Lastly, she prayed for three "wounds" or gifts, "the wound of true contrition, the wound of loving compassion and the wound of longing with my will for God."
The request for these three wounds stemmed from her desire to connect in a truly personal way with Christ's passion. The desire for contrition was not just a prayer for true repentance for sin, but also for an internal shift away from self-centeredness toward
God. In asking for the wound of compassion, Julian desired true care and concern for the other without allowing the preoccupations of personal concerns to intrude. Finally, the wound of longing for God was a request for a directness of purpose in following God so that beyond the vagaries of emotions and feelings, dry spells and periods rich in prayer, she might ever have the strong and abiding desire for God.
Of these three requests, the first two she had prayed for conditionally, seeking their fulfillment only if that be God's will for her. They passed from her mind during the course of time. The desire for a vision and for a severe illness, however, was unexpectedly fulfilled in
May of 1373 when she was "thirty and a half years old." At that time she contracted a serious sickness, and death appeared imminent. She was given last rites and a crucifix was held before her so that she might reflect upon Christ crucified as she met her end.
Instead of death, however, she felt a sudden relief of her pain and received a series of fifteen visions, with a sixteenth coming the following day.
Julian wrote down an initial version of the visions in what is referred to as the Short Text. She spent the next twenty years revisiting and reflecting on her experience, then composed a later manuscript version known as the Long Text. Both versions begin with the circumstances of Julian's severe illness and the contents of each vision, but the Long Text adds a considerable amount of theological commentary and spiritual discussion about such questions as the nature of the soul, the relationship between God and humanity, the existence of sin, the meaning of suffering, and the inner life of the Trinity.
Although Julian is often noted for her discussion of the motherhood of God, another striking aspect of Showings, one explored in the following selections from that work, is her deep understanding of the
human person. Her anthropology is rooted in the understanding that, created in God's image, we reflect the wholeness and goodness of the divine. Julian even describes the soul as "a created trinity" and "God's dwelling place." Her understanding of the life of the soul centers around the basic premise of our goodness and yet our basic alienation from God, which corresponds to her discussion of the soul in terms of substance and sensuality.
^ Substance, the "higher" part, is the essence of our humanity as created by God. We exist only in God, who is the source and ground of all being. Sensuality, the ''lower" part of the soul, is that which comprises our freedom and independence and includes our physical and psychological natures as human beings. This construct does not in any way refer to a schism between body and soul or a negativity about the body. Julian had too great an appreciation for the goodness of creation for that. Rather, both aspects belong to the soul.
Both, too, are present in Jesus Christ, although he * For a further discussion of substance and sensuality, see Chapter 8, "Creation and Asceticism: Expressions of Love/' especially pp. 137-149, in Julian of Norwich: Mystic and Theologian by Grace Jantzen (Paulist Press, 1988).
shares substance with the Father by virtue of being begotten, while we have a share by virtue of our creation in God.
Julian notes that these two parts of the soul are often out of sync. Our substance, by virtue of our creation, is united always with God. But our sensuality is often mired in patterns of thought and behavior that draw us away from our essence and into self-centeredness. Our feelings of alienation and brokenness are the direct result of the internal division between our
"godly will," our abiding unity in substance with God, and our sensuality. We are like a house divided, for we often attempt to find fulfillment in earthly things when our deepest longings for wholeness can only be fulfilled by union in God. "This is the reason," Julian writes, "why no soul is at rest until it has despised as nothing all things which are created."
This lack of integration at the heart of the human condition is the basic human sin, or original sin.
Individual sins are at their root an outgrowth from the basic sinful condition in which we find ourselves. This fundamental brokenness and fragmentation is a common heritage to which each person contributes and by which each is affected. And yet sin, according to
Julian, is nothing.
It has "no kind of substance, no share in being, nor can it be recognized except by the pain caused by it." This does not mean sin is nonexistent, but rather that it has no substance, for God is the source of all substance and thus all substance is good. Evil and sin, therefore, are a negation of goodness and being. They are not the ultimate fact about ourselves and our existence.
The lack of integration between substance and sensuality results in a conflict between our godly will,
"which never assents to sin and never will," and our sensuality, which by virtue of our freedom and our choices is pulled into sins and moral failures. Our unity with God is, to Julian, a sign that we are fundamentally good, even if not on a conscious level, yet much of her work explores why our souls became so fragmented, why sin came into existence and why it continues. According to Julian, sin is the basic cause of all human suffering, and this fundamental alienation of the individual from God manifests itself in our relationship to others. Like a wound at the very heart of being, we suffer from it and inflict suffering on others because of it.
The pain and despair of the soul come not as a
result of God's blame, for in everything God sees our fundamental unity with him and our utter worthiness for love. Rather, it derives from our inability to see ourselves as God sees us, a blindness that is at heart a result of our fallen human condition. As Julian puts it, "all our travail is because love is lacking on our side," for God looks upon us with pity, understanding that because of our confusion and internal division we do not fully know ourselves or our desire for goodness and for him. While Julian has no complete answer to the problem of suffering and sin, she trusts in a vision she received that all will be well, that God will accomplish a remarkable deed in which all things will be healed. This is not meant as a trivialization of our suffering, but as a consolation.
Along with her belief that we will be delivered from our suffering, Julian holds that our suffering will be worth it.^ She does not mean that gratuitous suffering is positive, but that the joys we will receive will make
^ Jantzen has a fuller discussion of both Julian's idea that "all will be well" and that sin will be rewarded in Chapter
9, "Sin and Suffering/' especially pp. 173-190.
suffering worthwhile. In essence; rather than speak of rewards for good deeds, Julian speaks of reward from sin, believing that "just as there is indeed a corresponding pain for every sin; just so love gives to the soul a bliss for every sin."
If indeed suffering is to be rewarded, then original sin, our greatest pain and the cause otall the rest of our suffering, must certainly find heavenly recompense. This reward must be intrinsic tothe sin in some way, so that the sin itself is necessary for its bestowal.
Julian holds that it-is because of this fragmentation of the human person which results from sin that the ."wounds" of contrition, compassion, and longing for God can be developed. Julian refers to these three means as "medicines." Through our sorrow and humble seeking we open ourselves more to a true union in God and begin the process of healing our badly divided soul. The wound by which we were so grievously hurt has been transformed into the wounds that lead us into further integration in ourselves and in God. This is what Julian means when she speaks of wounds being turned into honors. She never implies that 'this transformation is something that we will recognize in this life or fuUy 'comprehend. Yet her under-
standing of the reward consoles her with its powerful claim that sin is not the final word about human nature, just as death was not the final word about Christ.
From her initial recollection of the gift of Christ's passion, Julian came to a greater understanding of the basic brokenness of human life, our deep need for love, and the sense of inner worth that comes from knowing we are of God. The selections from her
Showings included here present some of her tender, moving reflections on the life of the soul which bespeak an experience of and exploration into the struggles and questions that have remained universal in the spiritual life. Although space does not permit a full exploration of her visions or of her expanded commentary, these excerpts from the Long Text give the reader insight into the spiritual riches bestowed initially on Julian which have since become the treasure of generations of Christian readers.