Blessed Julian

Today we clebrate Blessed Julian of Norwich. We don't even know her real name--she's known by the name of her church-- but she was a powerful witness to the love of God. She was an English anchoress and mystic who lived from 1343 to sometime after 1416—as the Black Death swept through Europe--a pandemic that left the country decimated. After recovering from an illness, Julian began to see visions--showings. In them God spoke to her of His love for the world. In order to communicate with him with minimal interruptions, Julian went into the ultimate 'self isolation'. She became an anchoress, living her life in a single room attached to her church. It had one window opening into the church itself, and another which opened out into the world.

Thoughts of Julian's:

“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

“He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased'; but he said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome.”

“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.

In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.”