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Julian was a great English mystic and believed to be the first women to write a book in English (Middle English). An anchoress who may have been a Benedictine nun, Julian lived in a small hermitage - the remains of which have been restored and can still be visited today. Nothing is known of her life before becoming an anchorite and in fact we do not even know her real name. Julian says little about herself only refering to herself as 'a symple creature unlettyrde' (Paris Manuscript, Chapter 2, fol. 3, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris). She was given the name of the church where she had her cell. When she was thirty years old she became gravely ill and nearly died. When the medical crisis passed, she had a series of fifteen visions or "showings," through which she was led to contemplate the Passion of Christ. She devoted the rest of her life to prayer and contemplation of the meaning of her visions. An old English historian writes: "In 1393, Lady Julian, the anchoress here was a strict recluse, and had two servants to attend her in her old age. This woman was in these days esteemed one of the greatest holiness." Julian of Norwich lived in a time of tribulation, upheaval and coruption. Though social patterns were breaking down, segments of society were in revolt and people had suffered the terrors of the Black Death, none of the eras concerns is reflected in her spiritual writings, Revelations of Divine Love. Her spiritual masterpiece relates redemption, divine consolation, love of God and an awareness that divine love can bring good from any circumstance. She writes, "These revelations, were shown to a simple creature unlettered, the year of our Lord 1373, the eighth day of May." She desired above all to know the suffering of our Lord--what she called "the mind of His Passion"--and that nothing might stand between herself and God. She tells us that when at the age of 30 she was at the point of death and the curate was sent for to administer the last rites, "he set the Cross before my face and said: 'I have brought you the Image of thy Maker and Savior: Look thereupon and comfort yourself with it.'" 
For the next 20 years Julian meditated on the 16 revelations of Christ's Passion and the Trinity. In a state of ecstasy she would see many things; the Virgin, a young and simple maid, the red blood flowing from under Christ's Crown of Thorns and she saw our Lord a 'homely loving.' Then God showed her a little hazel nut in the palm of her hand and she wondered what might this be? It was answered: "It is all that is made. God shaped it. God gave it life. God maintains it."
Thus, she learned the goodness of God which "comes down to our lowest need." In the Crucifix she saw the stream of God's mercy falling like showers of rain, and looked upon the tokens of His Passion. She saw our Lord dying and underwent the torments and agony of His suffering. "And thus I saw Him, and sought Him; I had Him and I wanted Him." It seemed, she said, as if He were seven nights dying, so outdrawn was His anguish, suffering the last pain, seven nights dead, continually dying, in a cold dry wind. "Thus was I taught to choose Jesus for my Heaven, whom I saw only in pain at that time . . . to choose only Jesus in good times and bad. . . . He shall make all well that is not well. . . . Prayer unites the soul to God." She was concerned that when we are sometimes faced with a difficult moral decision, no matter which way we decide we will have acted from motives that are less then completely pure, so that neither decision is defensible. She finally wrote: "It is enough to be sure of the deed. Our courteous Lord will deign to redeem the motive." A matter that greatly troubled her was the fate of those, who through no fault of their own, had never heard the Gospel. She never received a direct answer to her questions about them, except to be told that whatever God does is done in Love, and therefore "that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." About her visions of heaven and hell she wrote, "To me was shown no harder hell than sin." Regarding our response to the sins of others, in chapter 76 she writes, "The soul that would preserve its peace, when another's sin is brought to mind, must fly from it as from the pains of hell, looking to God for help against it. To consider the sins of other people will produce a thick film over the eyes of our soul, and prevent us for the time being from seeing the 'fair beauty of the Lord'-- unless, that is, we look at them contrite along with the sinner, being sorry with and for him, and yearning over him for God. Without this it can only harm, disturb, and hinder the soul who considers them. I gathered all this from the revelation about compassion...This blessed friend is Jesus; it is his will and plan that we hang on to him, and hold tight always, in whatever circumstances; for whether we are filthy or clean is all the same to his love." "Glad and merry and sweet is the blessed and lovely demeanour of our Lord towards our souls, for he saw us always living in love - longing, and he wants our souls to be gladly disposed toward him . . . by his grace he lifts up and will draw our outer disposition to our inward, and will make us all at unity with him, and each of us with others in the true, lasting joy which is Jesus." Her remarkable book conveys deep insight and is a tender meditation on the all embracing, eternal love of God expressed in the Passion of Christ. 
"In Christ our two natures are united."
"Our soul can never have rest in things that are beneath itself."
"God can do all that we need." "I knew well that while I beheld in the Cross I was surely safe."
"Love was our Lord's meaning."
God does not want us to be burdened because of sorrows and tempests that happen in our lives, because it has always been so before miracles happen."
"The greatest honor you can give to Almighty God is to live gladly, joyfully because of the knowledge of His love.
During her lifetime, she became known as a counselor, whose advice combined spiritual insight with common sense, and many persons came to speak with her. Since her death, many more have found help in her writings. By the time of her death she had a far-spread reputation for sanctity, which attracted visitors from all over England to her cell. In the words of Julian of Norwich: "For love's sake, let us pray together to God, with God's working: thanking, trusting, enjoying for our good Lord desires to be prayed to in this way. " Julian's focus is on the wounds of Christ, and it is, indeed, the wounds from the crown of thorns on Christ's head that is the subject of Julian's first revelation, described in the fourth chapter of the long text of Showings. This revelation is Trinitarian, Marian, and takes on the aroma of medieval courtesy. Julian sees the passion of Christ in the blood flowing from Christ's head as meant for herself and for all believers; there is solidarity. Julian experiences Christ as connected to the Father and the Spirit; there is "keeping," "loving," "joy," and "bliss."16 Julian is consoled in her experience by Mary, mother of the Lord; Julian finds acceptance. God's courtesy is seen in his being lowered to humanity through Mary, for the sake of other creatures. God is good enough to share with Julian the "wisdom and truth" of Mary's soul. Though the first of all believers, Mary "marvelled, with great reverence, that he willed to be born of her that was a simple creature of his making."7 (pg 52?) Julian of Norwich is commemorated by the Roman Catholic Church on May 13 and by the Anglican Church on May 8. Julian Hermitage Home |