Julian of Norwich: A Spiritual Guide for Troubled Times.
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” is one of the most known messages that Julian of Norwich has left us from her writings in the Middle Ages. First, I will explore the themes of Christian mysticism and spiritual guidance. These concepts are not part of everyday ideas in the life of most people, therefore a basic understanding of both is necessary. Spiritual guides and soul friends are precious and often necessary when we seek closer and relational prayers with the Divine source. Julian of Norwich lived in a different world from ours, the Middle Ages. Let’s look at what was historically happening around Julian and who this Christian mystic is? Then, I will share how I came to ‘meet’ Julian of Norwich in my own spiritual journey and why I believe she can be a great source of support and strength to those working with refugees and asylum seekers in our time. What is an anchoress and how was she providing spiritual direction? I will attempt to describe our current context and why many people are looking for spiritual guidance. Finally, I will explore some of Julian’s themes as they pertain to how she understood her visions along with how these visions transcended her soul. Her themes among others include unconditional love, concepts of sin and anger, and Oneing. Her visions led her to conclude that because we are so loved and cherished that even though we may not see the bigger picture, “All manner of thing shall be well” (Earle 8).
CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM
As I explore Christian mysticism through books and stories, I am intensely reminded of my Celtic roots from Brittany, France. I come from a people attached to beliefs and myths from before the Christian era. History and myths are now merged, and written reminders of Celtic myths can be found on public monuments, in literature and in the culture of that land. Druid culture with all its quirky characters from healers to seers was a fecund ground for Christianity to take hold (Encyclopedia Brittanica). The experiential understanding and knowledge of Divine encounters were already part of the Celtic culture. Celtic rituals always included natural outdoor elements like water and fire, animals, and gods and goddesses. Even the trinitarian model was already part of the Celtic culture: “Hence, there was already a willingness to accept the concept of the Trinity, since the myths of Ireland featured a trio of founding goddesses” (Meehan loc 38). The Roman Empire under Julius Caesar conquered Gaul and Brittany (France, Armorica) in 56 BCE. When the Roman Empire made its official religion the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in 381CE, Celtic culture, symbols, and myths all over the empire were covered, erased, hidden or destroyed if they could not be transformed into acceptable Christian stories, symbols, and rituals. This did not stop the Celtic people from continuing to practice and believe in their own way. Women were always involved in the practices of rites and ceremonies and were fully integrated and equal to the men. In that society, men and women pursued their calling. Having a companion, a soul friend also known as anam chara, to make the journey into the Divine presence was part of the Celtic traditions. Meehan states: “The tradition of a Christian seeking a spiritual guide, mentor, soul friend or anam chara (in Gaelic) was a prevalent Celtic custom. Saint Brigit stated that a Christian without an anam chara was like a body without a head, so important was this spiritual friendship in living out the gospel. Women as well as men served as spiritual friends” (loc 148).
Mystics and prophets have always been part of religions. They shared their visions, their callings and their “happenings” from Divine sources with other prophets, holy people, and seeking souls. These events regardless of location, culture and language seem to cause a compulsion to share and pass on the messages they received. Most of these mystics and prophets shared through teaching, storytelling, and writings. All of them were already faithful, humble, and in love with their God and faith. They belong to the Wisdom Tradition. These men and women shared their unimaginable understanding of God’s total gift of love, special to each and every one of us as God’s creations. Creation spirituality is part of the Wisdom Tradition and brings into focus a different way of experiencing and living Christianity. Matthew Fox, who also wrote about Julian of Norwich, reminds us that:
Creation spirituality forms the matrix of Celtic spirituality and was foundational to Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, Mechtild of Magdeburg and Meister Eckhart, all of whom led up to Julian of Norwich. Creation spirituality begins with creation, the universe, nature as a whole. It is not anthropocentric, but first looks at the “whole” beyond merely human interests (loc 207).
He affirms that Julian of Norwich is a theologian along these lines: “Julian, too, had her ancestors: Benedict, Hildegard, Francis, Aquinas, Mechtild, and Eckhart. Julian belongs in their league so grounded in the wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Bible that also nurtured the historical Jesus” (loc 113).
Another woman, still in her teens experienced such revelations. I am referring to Joan of Arc who, half a century after Julian’s visions, also had visions that prompted her to raise an army and liberated France (Gaul) from the British invaders. She was burnt at the stake for it. No doubt she was a Christian mystic, even if it took almost 500 years for the RCC to canonize her. I see mysticism as the personalized and experiential communications one believes is happening or has happened with one or more Divine entities or Holy guides who transmit images, messages, revelations, and answers through a mystic, opened to them. These are deeply transformative and rare events that often lead to radical changes in one’s understanding of God, love, life, death, the world and faith.
SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE
Edwards in his book titled Spiritual Friends, describes how religion can influence our understanding and behavior towards others and transform our fears and faith into a “domesticated spirituality”. He states that: “If fear of losing what self seems to possess is deepest, we look for security there: a clear rigid way; unquestioned rights and wrongs; high walls that keep out differences; fellowship that shares complicity in never speaking of what may disturb or transform us, only speaking of what will comfort and secure” (1980 15). This analysis is very much in play in our current world. I so appreciate Edwards willingness to not mince his words, and to warn us off the easy and comfortable ways religions can provide. I find that his definition of spiritual direction to be practical and open to the mysterious at the same time:
Spiritual direction can best be understood as the meeting of two or more people whose desire is to prayerfully listen for the movements of the Holy Spirit in all areas of a person's life (not just in their formal prayer life). It is a three-way relationship: among the true director who is the Holy Spirit (which in Christian tradition is the Spirit of Christ present in and among us), and the human director (who listens for the directions of the Spirit with the directee), and the directee (Edwards 2001 loc 69-72).
Obviously, both parties, the director and directee(s) have to be willing to accept and trust that the Holy Spirit is instrumental in revealing paths, ideas, directions, themes, etc. Not all people of faith can honor and respond to such signs. Listening via prayerful silence and allowing for things to reveal themselves requires that the director stops all their own internal chatter. Benner shares that: “At their best, Christian friends help each other discern God’s presence, recognize it as a presence of grace, come to trust that grace and surrender to it more fully. Trusting and surrendering to grace is learning to say yes to God’s yes” (loc 675). This is realizing that there is a call to serve! The spiritual guide is to create a space where the directee can choose to express their faith, experiences and relationship to God. The only goal is the awakening of a person to their own personal and internal relationship with God. The focus should be only on being in the moment and being open to the movements of the Holy Spirit. This process requires a mutual trust, a centered vulnerability and a willingness to go beyond our own will, feelings and devotion:
The spiritual heart provides a more obscure but substantial loving awareness in God, so obscure to the thinking mind that it could be called a mind of “unknowing” (as we see described in the anonymous contemplative text The Cloud of Unknowing). When the thinking mind bathes in the spiritual heart, what the mind then “thinks” is influenced by the heart’s purer connectedness with the living Presence (2010 loc 286-290).
Other spiritual directors describe the wholeness of this process: “Spiritual direction encompasses the totality of one’s life—body, mind, and spirit—as these function in one’s environment of meaning. While therapy deals with coping, and counseling with deciding, spiritual direction deals with lived meaning” (Jones loc 451). Guenther’s perspective on the practice of spiritual director is a bit different. She references many examples from her own experience with directees. As a practitioner, she offers a safe place and hospitality with no judgement. Her directees seem to be struggling with praying while burdened by sin and shame: “Beyond the predictable difficulty of talking about prayer under any circumstances, people come to us burdened by sin, real and imagined, and by shame. The person recovering from addiction needs to feel safe with us; the survivor of sexual abuse needs to know that no detail can shock or disgust us” (20). I am, however, ill at ease with the proximity of serious medical or psychological issues being brought up in a non-medical setting. Guenther is aware of the risk when she writes: “Spiritual direction is not a crisis ministry, even though the initial impulse to seek out a director may arise from a sense of urgent personal need” (p 92). I much prefer Gatta’s views on Julian regarding this aspect. She reminds us that Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love were intended for “those who have earnestly lived the faith for a number of years. Such persons yearn to make spiritual progress: to be free of sin and attraction to evil, and to experience union with God ..., through contemplative prayer” (54). The themes of sin, anger, wrath, and God’s unconditional love are explored from Julian’s perspective and in relations to her visions throughout this document.
JULIAN AND HER WORLD
Around 1342 (CE) when Julian was born, women were not educated nor allowed to own land or property. At that time, the life expectancy for a woman was barely 35 years old. These were tumultuous times for most people in Europe. Three different plagues came through, one after the other and killed between 1/3 to half of the European population. The weather in England became extreme and rain made many crops rotten in the fields year after year. Severe repeated famines occurred during those years which eliminated another 10% of the population: “At its peak in the 1340s in England, it [the Plague also known as the Black Death] killed approximately three-fourths of the population of Norwich” (Earle 16). Everyone lost parents, children, siblings and loved ones. “The beginning of the Hundred Years War also started during this period and in rural areas, many peasants revolted due to their oppression as field hands, resulting in churches and monasteries being pillaged” (Jantzen 3-12). At the age of thirty, while at door’s death, Julian was receiving the last rites when she had “shewings”, sixteen divinely inspired visions. Those visions restored her health, and she survived. In those visions, she saw, experienced and conversed with the Divine source that she believed to be God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost all in one. Her life was deeply changed. She requested to be anchored at St. Julian church at Norwich for the rest of her life, in order to pray, study, and serve those in need of spiritual guidance. We don’t know her actual name, but we know that she felt compelled to record her visions. She wrote her visions and her understanding of them shortly after, in a compilation titled the “short text” of Revelations of Divine Love. She wanted to write and meditate on these “shewings” or visions from a divine source; she did so for a few more decades and expanded her writings of these sixteen visions in her “Long Text”. She is now known as Julian of Norwich, a Christian mystic from the 14th century. Our spiritual guide lived to the advanced age of about 74 years.
MEETING JULIAN
I encountered the writings of Julian of Norwich while on a two-year spiritual program through the Center for Action and Contemplation founded by Father Richard Rohr who also a Franciscan brother. This program is called the Living School. We learned and practiced centering prayers and the emptying of oneself to make room for the Divine source inside of us as a form of compassionate meditation. We studied and read many mystics, some Christians and some not, many theologians, and were exposed to various concepts such as non-dual thinking, the Cosmic Christ and Oneing. We learned new concepts, and many new words to help stretch and grow our awareness.
Reading Julian of Norwich is a lot like meeting her mind and soul. Her visions or “shewings” brought her to a mental and spiritual space where she interacted with God; there, she felt there was no place for sin, anger, or wrath. These revelations were quite different from what the church was teaching from the pulpit. Studying Julian of Norwich writings and about her can bring new perspectives in understanding our human capacity to endure, hope and survive even in the worst of times. Julian knew hard times. Her writings were hidden and protected for centuries after her death. It is only over the last 100 years that her work resurfaced and has been studied and made accessible to the public. It seems that it has touched a nerve and many people discovering her visions express a call to radical love and inclusion through compassion and prayers. She brings hope where despair seemed unsurmountable. “Our very human pains and anger occur when one is, consciously or not, separated from the love, acceptance, and peace of the divine source” (Rohr 2020).
CHOOSING JULIAN, THE ANCHORESS
Matthew Fox informs us that: “The anchorite tradition traces its beginnings to the third and fourth centuries in Palestine. Men were called anchorites, and there were far fewer of them than there were women. In England, the first recorded examples date to the eleventh century. About two hundred anchorites peopled England in the thirteenth century” (loc 366). Though her life was sheltered, she had servants to keep her space clean and prepare her food. She also had a cat to keep mice and rats away (see fig. 1). She participated in the church and even “guided” those seeking help. The life Julian chose as an anchoress attached to the Church of Saint Julian at Norwich meant that she was enclosed in a room for the rest of her life, never to emerge until her death. But it was not an isolated or miserable life. A window into the church allowed her to participate in the liturgy, and another window into an attached parlor allowed her to counsel many who came seeking her advice and prayers, such as Margery of Kempe, who records her visit to Julian about 1412–13” (Ruether 46) (fig.2).
I chose Julian of Norwich as my spiritual companion because she embodies the stark reality of keeping hope and love alive even under the worst possible circumstances. This 14th century mystic provides guidance and encouragement; she lifts those struggling with the trauma of life, diseases, famine, fear, injustice, faith, and death. Her “Shewings” as she called them, speak of the enduring love from our God. She described experiencing revelations that are neither bound by space nor time. She was shown an abundance of love and peace by the Divine source where all is forgiven, all is patient, and all is compassionate love. Earle emphasizes this in her analysis of Julian’s visions as well:
Julian tells us, again and again, in a variety of ways, that God is our friend, our mother and our father, as close to us as the clothing we wear. She employs homely imagery and language, the vocabulary of domesticity, to tell us her experience. At the same time, she demonstrates a degree of sophisticated theological language. Julian is firm and steady on these points:
God is One.
Everything is in God.
God is in everything.
God transcends and encloses all that is made (loc 17).
Her questions were answered through visions where there were no sins, no wrath, no judgement, no anger, no vengeance, and no injustice or pain but for how we treat each other. God’s love showed her that “all matter of thing shall be well”. Her experiential revelations changed her and the course of her life. It gave her a new wisdom that she shared in assuring and guiding those struggling who felt abandoned by God. I strongly believe that Julian of Norwich can be a pillar of strength and encouragement to those seeking hope, a deeper awareness, and God’s peace in an unfair world. Wars, pandemics, famines, slavery, and exploitation of labor are the same elements that Julian experienced in her Medieval time. Guenther adds: “True spiritual direction is about the great unfixables in human life. It’s about the mystery of moving through time. It’s about mortality. It’s about love. It’s about things that can’t be fixed” (loc 47). Guenther wisely suggests that: “we take sin and pain upon ourselves, not in grandiose self - promotion, but because the assumption of such a burden is one of the risks of hospitality” (loc 31).
CURRENT CONTEXT
Christian mysticism seems to be generating new interest in this 21st Century. Our planet is suffering the effects of unbridled exploitation of nature, animals, and people. Our climates are no longer predictable nor conducive to supporting human needs. New viruses are chopping lives in various parts of our planet. Civil wars and military wars are experienced on most continents. The poorest among humanity are being abandoned to suffer famines, pandemics, deluges, earthquakes, water shortages, and medical crises. The AIDS epidemic, the Avian flu, the corona viruses and the Covid 19 epidemics spread to all continents. They have marked the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries in ways resembling the waves of plagues of the Middle Ages. There is no place to hide, no place to feel safe. We are all connected and susceptible to any and all catastrophic events of our own making or not.
The USA is the richest country in the world and for those living outside, they see it as a place of hope, of green pastures, of relative order, of peace and abundance. Coming from Africa, South and Central America, Haiti, Cuba, Asia, the Middle East, and now Ukraine, many individuals and families are reaching our borders and asking for asylum and protection. Working with asylum seekers prior to their full acceptance in the country, you hear of the horror of slavery, of children’s exploitations, of tortures, of indiscriminate murders of entire groups of families, ethnicities and of those of diverse religions. There seems to be no end to humanity’s will to pillage, control and exploit the “Other”.
Immigration policies in the USA allowed for hundreds of infants to teenagers to be incarcerated in cages because their families were crossing our borders to escape violence, poverty, crime and hunger. We live in a time of chaos, politically, religiously, scientifically and physically. As we have increased our reach across this world through travel and instant access to communication. The powers that be, have corrupted other lands and people to increase the exploitation of their territory and resources. This kind of exploitation brings on the worst in people and many civil and military wars are the results across countries and continents. This is causing so much violence and terror that thousands of people leave their country and uproot their families to find safety and peace. Some become UN refugees and live in camps for years while others just run away hoping to save their lives. Many are very religious and attribute their escapes to their faith in God. Yet, when the dust settled and survival behavior is no longer warranted, doubt, depression, PTSD, and survivor’s guilt come to the surface. Most individuals in the asylum-seeking population are traumatized by their past and have serious mental health needs that cannot be ignored: “About one out of three asylum seekers and refugees experience high rates of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD)”. (Song, S. & Teichhltz, S 2). Their needs are immense, and the social workers, case managers, lawyers, advocates, and volunteers are quickly overwhelmed and emotionally spent. Sometimes mental health access and professional evaluations are provided, but mostly the current health care system only provides for obvious emergencies. Other families are on their own. These brave souls trying to help the least among us are willing and trying to bring support. The ongoing arrival of more and more refugees and asylum seekers is stretching the financial, physical, mental and spiritual resources in each country and many communities. Burnout is not just amongst those who provide emergency services like access to hospital, water, housing, clothing, and food. Burnout is now experienced by the day-to-day workers, the professionals, and volunteers in NGOs involved. There is no longer the “feel good” emotion for them, but the bittersweet realization that they must let go of some families to focus on new families arriving. Even worse are the political and personal responses from various parties and people in some of the richest countries. A resurgence of extreme right movements in Europe and America who are focused on creating false narratives that describe these most vulnerable populations as criminals, endangering the families of the current civilian populations.
OTHER THEMES IN JULIAN’S REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE
As previously discussed above, Julian’s visions were quite extensive and addressed many questions. We looked at Julian’s God offering unconditional love. This is the love we are meant to experience from the Divine source. She insists that: “We are never really separated from God, nor do we ever lose our true nature as God’s created image. We have become blind and have forgotten who we are, but we have not ceased to be, in our true essence, the noble manifestation of God’s loving goodness (Radford Ruether 54). This unconditional love can only be because God is a beneficent power with no wrath, no anger, no judgement and no retaliation. Julian asks that we “Remember: there can be no wrath in God. He endlessly upholds that which honors him and, with infinite power and perfect justice, opposes the forces of evil, which busily conspire to act against the divine will” (Starr 34-35). This is a very different God from the one taught through the RCC dogma. In the same way, Julian was shown a trinitarian model of unity. She even felt and recognized that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are to be understood as the Trinity, and one Divine essence at the same time. They are invisible to us and omni present in us and us in them. “For Julian, the Trinity is never an abstract theological dogma but a deeply personal relationship with God as Creator, Protector, and Sanctifier. These three attributes correspond, respectively, with her vision of God as Father, Mother, and everlasting Lover” (Rolf 169).
This led her to a new understanding, that of Oneing, meaning that we are all one with God and God within us and all creation is one with the Divine source. Oneing was a brand new and a controversial theme for the RCC. In Starr’s translation of Julian’s writings, she points out that when speaking of retreating “into our own souls, which is where our Beloved dwells,” Julian again refers us to the concept of universality that encompasses our spiritual search: “Let no man or woman think this truth applies personally to the individual. It does not; it is universal” (Starr 172). Another theme revealed to her was that the Divine source had as much of a feminine face as that of a masculine one. Starr in her 2013 translation of Julian’s Revelations translated her words as: “Through the unshakable certainty she has regarding the veracity of her visions, Julian unapologetically introduces God-the-Father, the exalted source of all Power; God-the-Mother (who is also the God-the-Son), the indwelling source of all Wisdom; and God-the-Holy-Spirit, the ever-present source of all Goodness, who transcends gender and permeates all things: All One Love” (loc 187). These themes were totally revolutionary in her time and dangerous for her as a woman to share with others.
CONCLUSION
Julian’s revelations can be instrumental in understanding, accepting, and sustaining without judgements, others in life/death crises. Messages of Love for all, inclusion, especially for those marginalized or recognized as vulnerable populations. No sin, no vindictive God, no retaliation and no anger. Our very human pains and anger occur when one is, consciously or not, separated from the love, acceptance, and peace of the divine source. In chapter 47, long text, Julian sees our inability to remain focused in blissful union with God in this present life, without falling back into feelings of separation, as the foundational expression of our fallen state, “the opposition that is in ourselves and that comes from the old root of our first sin” (Colledge and Walsh 261).
Julian encourages her readers to trust her message; she puts it at the end of the short text: “For God wants us always to be strong in our love and peaceful and restful as he is towards us, and he wants us to be, for ourselves and for our fellow Christians, what he is for us” (Ruether 59).
This statement from Starr’s translation says it all: “Most of all, Julian of Norwich promises that, in spite of appearances to the contrary, all is well. Not just that creation was beautifully made to begin with, and that it will all work out in the end, but that everything is all right at every moment, if we could only look through the eyes of love” (loc 196). Spiritual Guidance requires mental and spiritual optimism. Julian had them. Her certitude is a light for others.
Illustrations
Fig.1 Julian of Norwich with her cat in her anchor hold.
Fig.2 Anchorage at the Julian of Norwich Church in Norwich, England.
Works Cited
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