All will be well
St. Julian of Norwich on mercy
Today is the feast day of Saint Julian of Norwich, a 14th Century English contemplative and Doctor of the Church. Her book, Revelations of Divine Love is a classic mystical text and is the earliest surviving example of a book published by a woman in the English language. It is a profound meditation on divine love manifest in the Passion of Jesus Christ, based on a series of fifteen visions or “showings” that she experienced following a critical illness.
Julian became an anchoress or hermit, living in a small hut adjacent to the church in Norwich. She became widely known and revered for her wise spiritual counsel during her lifetime.
Revelations is notable for its non-binary understanding of God as both Father and Mother, and of Jesus as our “True Mother.” It is in the tradition of apophatic theology, which understands God as finally beyond all our ideas, images, and language, yet intimately self-disclosing at a level of perception that transcends our usual cognition. Saint Julian writes,
And from the time that [the vision] was shown, I desired often to know what our Lord's meaning was. And fifteen years and more afterward I was answered in my spiritual understanding, thus: 'Would you know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Keep yourself therein and you shall know and understand more in the same. But you shall never know nor understand any other thing, forever.1
Julian echoes the sentiment of The Cloud of Unknowing, an anonymous mystical text roughly contemporaneous with her own writing, that God cannot be known, but God can be loved. The energy of love has its own vibrational resonance, allowing us to tune into the divine frequency, as it were. All that we can know of God is revealed in this love.
Thus I was taught that love was our Lord's meaning. And I saw quite clearly in this and in all, that before God made us, he loved us, which love was never slaked nor ever shall be. And in this love he has done all his work, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us. And in this love our life is everlasting. In our creation we had a beginning. But the love wherein he made us was in him with no beginning. And all this shall be seen in God without end ...
Julian invites us to see each other through God’s eyes, and to extend to each other the same love and forbearance with which God bears with us.
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.
Here, Julian is in accord with Jesus’ teaching.
But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. – Luke 6:35-36
I find this teaching particularly compelling – and convicting – at this time of polarization, distrust, and anxiety permeating so many of our institutions and relationships. We are quick to judgment, but slow in mercy; readily seeing the faults in others but rarely sympathetically, mindful of our own shortcomings. Mea culpa.
The problem with our fixation on the faults of others is that it too often blinds us to our own faults, rather than serving as a mirror in which we might see ourselves more clearly. Even worse, it blinds us to the mercy of God – producing “a thick film over the eyes of the soul” as Julian describes it. Our perception of reality becomes distorted, and the illusion of separation obscures our fundamental unity.
Note that Saint Julian recognizes the reality of other people’s sin. This is not a counsel of denial or collusion. I doubt Julian was a conflict-avoidant co-dependent! If she was, she was a self-aware one! No, she asks us to see the faults of others sympathetically, and to respond with mercy. Otherwise, we are led into cycles of resentment, distortion, and retaliation that only “harm, disturb, and hinder the soul.” There is a saying attributed to AA circles: “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” I think Julian would agree.
Attunement to divine love opens the eyes of the heart, allowing us to see ourselves and others as beneficiaries of an extraordinary mercy that ultimately heals our wounds and reconciles our divisions. Another dimension of reality is opened up to us. When we are in this love, mercy is not something we do. It just is.
For many of us, it begins with forgiving ourselves. Then, we can forgive others. This is the path to freedom and serenity.
Triune God, Father and Mother to us all, who showed your servant Julian revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek you above all things, for in giving us yourself you give us all. Amen. (Collect for the Feast of St. Julian of Norwich)
For quotes from St. Julian, and more about her life see James Kiefer’s reflections at http://satucket.com/lectionary/Julian_Norwich.htm.