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Julian of Norwich — Revelations of Divine Love

c. 1373 (visions); c. 1393 CE (long text) · Late Medieval England (late 14th – early 15th century CE) · Norwich, England (Julian was anchoress at the Church of St Julian)

The Sickness and the Vision

1This is a revelation of Love that Jesus Christ, our endless bliss, made
2in sixteen shewings, or revelations particular.
3Of the which the first is of His precious Crowning with thorns;
4and therewith was comprehended and specified the Trinity, with the Incarnation,
5and unity betwixt God and man's soul, with many fair shewings of endless wisdom
6and teachings of love.
7These Revelations were shewed to a simple creature unlettered,
8the year of our Lord 1373, the 8th of May.

The Hazelnut

9And in this He shewed a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut,
10in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball.
11I looked thereupon with the eye of my understanding, and thought:
12What may this be?
13And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made.
14I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for littleness.
15And I was answered in my understanding:
16It lasteth, and ever shall last for that God loveth it.
17And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.
18In this Little Thing I saw three properties.
19The first is that God made it,
20the second is that God loveth it,
21the third, that God keepeth it.

God the Maker, Lover, Keeper

22But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover, — I cannot tell;
23for till I am Substantially oned to Him, I may never have full rest nor very bliss:
24that is to say, till I be so fastened to Him that there is right nought that is made betwixt my God and me.
25It needeth us to have knowing of the littleness of creatures
26and to hold as nought all-thing that is made, for to love and have God that is unmade.

The Motherhood of God

27I understood three manners of beholding of Motherhood in God.
28The first is grounded in our Nature's making;
29the second is taking of our nature, — and there beginneth the Motherhood of Grace;
30the third is Motherhood of working, — and therein is a forthspreading by the same Grace, of length and breadth and of height and of deepness without end.
31And all is one Love.
32Our nature is in God whole:
33in which He maketh us wholesome, and it is the substance of Motherhood.
34The mother may give her child suck of her milk,
35but our precious Mother, Jesus, He may feed us with Himself,
36and doeth it, full courteously and full tenderly, with the Blessed Sacrament that is precious food of my life.

Prayer and Trust

37I saw that His continuant working in all manner of things is done so goodly, so wisely,
38and so mightily, it overpasseth all our imagining and all that we can ween or think.
39And then may we do no more but behold Him, enjoying, with an high, mighty desire
40to be all oned unto Him, — centred to His dwelling,
41and to enjoy in His loving, and delight in His goodness.
42I beheld the working of all the Blessed Trinity:
43in which beholding I saw and understood these three properties:
44the property of the Fatherhood, and the property of the Motherhood, and the property of the Lordship in one God.

All Shall Be Well

45And in this He shewed a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut,
46and it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made.
47Also our Lord shewed to me, that a deed shall be done,
48and Himself shall do it, and I shall do nothing but sin,
49and my sin shall not hinder His goodness working.
50And I saw that He is to us all things that are good.
51All shall be well, and all shall be well,
52and all manner of thing shall be well.
53These words were said full tenderly, shewing no manner of blame to me nor to none that shall be safe.
54Then were it a great unkindness to blame or wonder on God for my sin,
55since He blameth not me for sin.

Love Was His Meaning

56From the time that these things were first shewed I had oftentimes desired to know
57what was our Lord's meaning.
58And fifteen years after, and more, I was answered in ghostly understanding, saying thus:
59Wouldst thou learn thy Lord's meaning in this thing?
60Learn it well: Love was His meaning.
61Who shewed it thee? Love.
62What shewed He thee? Love.
63Wherefore shewed it He? For Love.
64Hold thee therein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same.
65But thou shalt never know nor learn therein other thing without end.
66Thus was I learned that Love was our Lord's meaning.

The Concluding Prayer

67Thus I was learned that Love is our Lord's meaning.
68And I saw full surely that ere God made us He loved us;
69which love was never slacked, nor ever shall be.
70And in this love He hath done all His works;
71and in this love He hath made all things profitable to us;
72and in this love our life is everlasting.
73In our making we had beginning,
74but the love wherein He made us was in Him from without beginning:
75in which love we have our beginning.
76And all this shall we see in God without end.

notes

Julian of Norwich (c. 1342–after 1416) — probably not her birth name; adopted from the church of St Julian in Norwich where she lived as an anchoress — was an English Christian mystic and the earliest known female author of a book in the English language. On what she believed to be her deathbed at the age of thirty (May 1373), she received sixteen visions of Christ's passion and the love of God. She recovered, wrote them down first in a short text soon after, and then spent perhaps twenty years meditating on them before producing the long text (A Revelation of Divine Love) around 1393. The Revelations combine a profoundly personal encounter with the crucified Christ with a theological vision of remarkable subtlety and hope. Julian's central themes include: the hazelnut vision (all creation is small and fragile, but sustained by God's love); the motherhood of God (Jesus as mother, feeding us with his blood as a mother with milk); the paradox of sin (which is "no thing" — has no substantive being — yet is felt as pain); and, most famously, the promise "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." Julian was almost forgotten for centuries — the Revelations survived in a small number of manuscripts and was not printed until 1670. Her rediscovery in the 20th century, especially through T.S. Eliot's Little Gidding ("And all shall be well and / All manner of thing shall be well"), has made her one of the most beloved figures of Western Christianity. Translation: Grace Warrack, "Revelations of Divine Love, Shewed to a Devout Anchoress by Name Julian of Norwich," London: Methuen, 1901. Public domain.

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