Advent Day 13: Julian of Norwich
All will be well
Jesus did not say, 'You will never have a rough passage, you will never be over-strained, you will never feel uncomfortable,' but he did say, 'You will never be overcome.’
Advent Day 13: Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)
Though Julian of Norwich was born into a time that, in many ways, was drastically different than our own, her world was wracked by the same basic afflictions that trouble us in this third decade of the 21st century: war, economic upheaval and plague. This last made an especially profound mark on all who lived through it, including Julian. When she was six, the Black Death descended on her hometown. People died so quickly survivors were forced to bury victims in mass graves. Over the next few decades, successive waves of the plague killed half the population.
Let that settle for a moment.
Picture your family and friends, your workplace or church. Scroll through the photos on your phone. Now imagine half those people gone, wiped out by a bacterial infection with a nearly 100% fatality rate. This was Julian’s reality.
Julian writes that, at thirty, she lost the will to live. Though she doesn’t say why, scholars have concluded that she was probably married with children and her family had died. So, in May 1373 when Julian herself became critically ill, she welcomed her imminent death.
Fever and pain gripped Julian’s body. She slipped in and out of consciousness. When, after a few days, her breathing grew shallow, her mother summoned a priest to administer last rites. The priest stood at the foot of the bed, held up a cross, and instructed Julian to gaze on it as she faded from life.
What happened next we might today call a near-death experience. Julian’s pain suddenly vanished. A sweet warmth took its place, suffusing her entire being. The candlelight in the room dimmed. Only the cross remained mysteriously illuminated. Suddenly, the face of Jesus came alive, launching a series of sixteen visions that Julian eventually came to call showings. Blood flowed from under Jesus’s crown of thorns, down his face and neck. It was so copious, Julian wrote that if it had really been happening it would have covered her entire room and splashed up the walls. She witnessed scenes of his torture—being spat upon, mocked and punched. She saw his mother Mary, and hills and valleys. She felt her mind plunged to the bottom of a sea. She saw Jesus holding a hazelnut that represented the whole of the cosmos.
Through these revelatory visions, Julian came to spiritual truths that were far outside the mainstream religious culture of her time, and which, even now, are only beginning to penetrate our 21st century spiritual consciousness: that our failings (i.e. sins) have no permanent hold and will never keep anyone from a God who loves eternally and infinitely; that Christ’s embodiment is as much female as male (she refers to Christ as she and mother); that Jesus’s death, rather than a sacrificial substitute for the sins of humanity, as she’d been taught, was the revelation of God’s supreme union with creation—God not as a distant observer but a living Presence, intimately sharing every aspect of our lives, including our greatest suffering.
Undergirding all of this for Julian was the mystical truth spoken by Jesus in the gospel of John:
I have given them the glory You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one, I in them and You in Me—that they may be perfectly united, so that the world may know that You sent Me and have loved them just as You have loved Me. John 17:22-23
Through her visions, Julian awakened to a God who is the ground of all being, and with whom, through the Spirit, we participate in the divine flow of the Trinity. Oneing is the name she came up with to describe this unitive divine flow between God and all creation.
But why would God one with us? The answer came in one of Julian’s visions, and it is as simple as it is profound: love.
Throughout the time of my showings, I wished to know what our Beloved meant…The answer came in a spiritual vision. This is what I heard. “Would you like to know our Lord's meaning in all this? Know it well: love was his meaning. Who revealed this to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why did he reveal it to you? For love. Stay with this and you will know more of the same. You will never know anything but love, without end.”
God made us out of love, for love. Everyone and everything exists because it has been loved into existence. God is Love itself.
When the visions stopped, Julian’s illness miraculously vanished. Utterly transformed, she decided to make Love her vocation. She became an anchoress at the local church, taking up residence in a cell with one cat and two windows, one looking into the sanctuary so she could participate in services, the other facing the street. Her reputation as a mystic spread, and many from Norwich and beyond sought her out for spiritual direction and friendship, most notably the great English mystic Margery Kempe.
Julian was in her seventies when she and the much younger Margery became friends. In many ways, these women—destined to be remembered as the Middle Ages’ two great English mystics—were a study in contrasts: Julian was humble, quiet and isolated in her cell; Margery was extroverted, a serial entrepreneur who attracted attention and stirred up trouble wherever she went.
It was this trouble that led to their meeting. Margery’s spiritual transformation had led her to leave her husband and hit the road in search of other mystics. A lone woman traveler—especially one who’d abandoned marriage and had a penchant for illegal street corner preaching—was a provocation in early 15th century England, and Margery often found herself arrested or run out of town. In time, the constant opposition wore on her to the point that she began to wonder if everyone was right, and maybe she was just crazy and should go home and keep quiet. Seeking an opinion she trusted, she sought out Julian.
Fortunately, Julian understood what is was like to be misunderstood. She reassured Margery that she was not some kook, but a spiritual visionary with a message the world needed to hear. In fact, she said, the amount of resistance Margery met was the best way to measure the importance of her message. If it hadn’t struck a chord, no one would care enough to fight her.
Fortified by Julian’s faith in her, Margery resumed her travels, preaching, seeking and keeping notes for the book she planned to eventually write.
Julian, too, was writing. In fact, she’d written about her visions for years, but kept it secret from nearly everyone. Only one of her female attendants knew what she was up to. When Julian died, this attendant preserved Julian’s work, which eventually came to be known as Revelations of Divine Love—now considered the oldest surviving English work by a woman.
Though Revelations Of Divine Love was officially published in the 1700s, it has only been since the 20th century that Julian’s account of her visions has gained popularity, as the world has finally become ready to receive her inspired wisdom.
Julian’s visions left her with a deep hope, joy and peace that distilled themselves in love. She came to believe that God did not exist to save the world, or us, from decay and destruction, but to walk with us through every moment. This allowed Julian, in the end, to say with utter confidence and conviction—and with the mystic’s view of deep time—All will be well, all will be well, and every manner of thing will be well.
Practice
The sum of Julian’s mystical experience was:
All will be well, all will be well, and every manner of thing will be well.
This is a deeper truth that points beyond the momentary to an eternal Love that sustains us even as we are not saved from the trials of life.
As you go about your day, keep returning to Julian’s words. How do you feel about them? Do they resonate? Or are they difficult to connect to? Have you ever felt something similar during your own trials—that you were sustained even when you weren’t “saved”? If so, did that experience change how you have been able to cope with life’s inevitable difficulties?
Holidays at Life In The City
All in-person gatherings listed below happen at 205 East Monroe St. in Austin, Texas.
Dec. 8, 11:15 am: LITC’s original musical, Make Room In Your Heart. Dec. 21, 6:00 pm: Blue Christmas, an intimate service for the longest night. Dec. 23, 6:00 pm: Our annual Christmas Eve-Eve service. Dec. 29, 11:15 am: Welcome 2025 with a fun, casual service that includes coffee, cookies, conversation and resolution-making.
Contemplation In The City
Life In The City’s contemplative community meets regularly to practice sacred traditions like Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer. If you’re in Austin, consider joining us. Upcoming in-person gatherings are Jan. 14, Feb. 4, Mar. 4, Apr. 8, May 6. We meet at 205 East Monroe Street in Austin. Doors open at 6pm for coffee and conversation, service from 7-8pm. You might also find meaning in our monthly newsletter in which we wrestle with how to live a spiritually engaged life in the modern world. Read more here.
Ready For More?
Read the Introduction to the 2022 edition, to find out how my experience of September 11, 2001 became my gateway to Advent.
Find more mystics, saints and prophets in our Archive.
Feedback
Catch a typo? Have suggestions for mystics, saints and prophets for a future year? Leave feedback in the Comments below or email Greg Durham at greg@litcaustin.org.
Excellent article, especially the depiction of her visionary "Shewings." The "Revelations of Divine Love" can be a tough slog, however. An alternative is "Meditations with Julian of Norwich" by Brendan Doyle as a daily contemplation companion reader. I captures the essence of the "Book of Showings" without the accompanying text.