JULIAN OF NORWICH

Introduction

Today, 8th May 2021, is the day on which the church commemorates Julian of Norwich. She is notable for being an anchoress, a woman who lived in an enclosed space in the church and dedicated herself to a life of prayer. She is also famous for her book accounting for her “showings” or visions of faith.

We might wonder why some people join religious orders. Who are anchorites or hermits and why have some people isolated themselves voluntarily in this way throughout many centuries of Christianity? Let us explore, and find out some of the surprising things “Mother Julian” might teach us.

Julian of Norwich

 Julian of Norwich was the author of Revelations of Divine Love, the first book in English known to be written by a woman. We do not know very much about her, and this is not even her real name but a name that has been given to her as she lived in the church of St Julian and St Edmund in Norwich. She was probably born in 1342 and lived until some time after 1416.

As a young woman, Julian asked for three things from God: “a vivid perception of Christ’s Passion,” an illness that would nearly kill her but give her further insight into Christ’s work for us, and “three wounds” of contrition, compassion and an earnest longing for God.

Nearing thirty, she was indeed taken seriously ill and her mother and family gathered around her deathbed. A priest came to her home with a crucifix to pray for her. She saw the first of her “showings” (insights or visions) – Jesus dripping blood on the cross. A series of these showings occurred and then, when she recovered, Julian meditated on their meaning for the rest of her life. This led to her writing about them.

She went to live in a small room built onto the church whose name she now bears – becoming an “anchorite” or “anchoress,” a person who is permanently living in a church. As well as being in church to help them to pray almost constantly, anchorites had a window to the outside world and people would come to them for spiritual advice. But Julian herself says her own life is less important than the content of her showings:

“I am not good because the revelations came to me, but only if I love God the better for it, and so can and so should everyone who sees and hears it with good will and true intention.”

So Julian has not written for us tips on coping with isolation, with silence, and with confinement in a small space. How then might we find her words useful? Perhaps because she has written on her vision of Christ. She was perhaps not “confined” in her cell attached to the church, but by her own volition installed there, set free to seek God and to pray for others all day.