LATE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

EARLY LIFE
JULIAN OF NORWICH (c. November 8,
1342 – c.1416) known as Lady Julian, Dame Julian,
and Mother Julian, was an English mystic and
Christian theologian. Julian lived in the century in
which Europe was ravaged by the Black Death,
and England and France were torn by
the Hundred Years War. Against a background of
war, plague, social turmoil, and religious unrest
she shared in a flowering of English mysticism
along with Walter Hilton, Richard Rolle, Margery Kempe, and the anonymous author
of The Cloud of Unknowing. She is considered to be one of the greatest English mystics
and the first known female writer in English. Little is known of her life aside from her
writings. The name "Julian" itself comes from the Church of Saint Julian in Norwich,
where she occupied a cell adjoining the church as an anchoress.

Little is known about Julian's life. In May 1373, when Julian was thirty years old,
she became severely ill. At what seemed the point of death, she revived and received
what she described as fifteen "showings of God's love"; on the following day she had a
sixteenth such experience. Her mother, her parish priest, and possibly others were with
her at these times. Sometime later Julian wrote a description of these showings that is
now referred to as the "short text" or "short version." Twenty years later, after profound
meditation, she felt she had come to a fuller understanding of the showings, and she
wrote a much longer version, concluding: "So I was taught that love is our Lord's
meaning. And I saw very certainly in this and in everything that before God made us,
he loved us, which love was never abated and never will be" (Colledge and
Walsh, Showings, p. 342).

At some time in her life Julian became an anchoress, living in a cell attached to the
church of Saint Julian in King Street. It was probably from this saint that she took the
name by which she is known.

Masterpiece

Julian is famous for her book Revelations of Divine Love. Julian had an
optimistic faith. She is best known for her saying 'All shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well' and she said 'Prayer is not overcoming God's
reluctance. It is laying hold of his willingness'. Julian also said 'God showed me
something as small as a hazel nut in the palm of my hand' She wondered what it was
and God told her 'It is all that is made'. Julian also wrote about the 'motherhood' of God.
She said 'As truly as God is our father so truly God is our mother'. Julian also said
'Between God and the soul there is no between'. Today Julian of Norwich is
remembered as a Christian mystic.

Revelations of Divine Love is a wonderful source of revelation to connect a reader

to the Father. The first revelation (Chapters IV to IX) is the revelation of “His precious
crowning with thorns” and Jesus’s love for all that He made by dying on the cross for His
people. When He left earth the Holy Spirit came down to dwell among us. St. Julian is
brought to understand the death, resurrection, and the incarnation of Christ. She is also
led to see that our God is a Triune God. Our heavenly Father is made up of three parts:
The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each person is distinctly different but together
they make up one God identical in essence
FOCUS

Julian addressed self-knowledge and knowledge of God by using the Virgin

Mary as a focus: she meditated on “the vertuse of her blissed soule—her truth, her
wisdom, her cherite—wherby I may leern to know myself and reverently drede my
God” (W, 205). She also focuses strongly on the love and omnibenevolence of God.
Most characteristic of her mystical theology is her likening of divine love to motherly
love. Julian famously spoke of Jesus as a wise mother and counselled others to
approach Christ as a child would approach his/her mother. Today, Julian and her
writings continue to have an effect on those studying Christian mystical theology

IMPACT /LEGACY

Julian's positive, hopeful message is beloved by many and held in high esteem by
Catholics and other Christians. Her teachings on sin, forgiveness, and the motherhood
of God are unique in Catholic theology. Although she was never beatified she is called
"Saint" Julian of Norwich.

She is commemorated by the Roman Catholic Church on May 13, and by both the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as a renewer of the Church and
the Anglican Church on May 8.

aeri