GARDNER-WEBB UNIVERSITY
JULIAN OF NORWICH
SUBMITTED TO PROF. S. STEIBEL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF CHRISTIAN JOURNEY
BY SAMUEL B HARRELSON 11 FEBRUARY 2009
Julian of Norwich’s work, Showings, should not be viewed in a vacuum of time and space. Rather, her work should be approached with an understanding of the particular context in which she lived and worked. Relegating this background material obfuscates the text to an entity of purely spiritual, rather than practical, reflection and instruction, which doesn’t allow for the text to adequately represent its worth. Julian was born in November of 1342 during what can only be described as a chaotic time in the history of Western Europe. Fourteenth century England was especially being pulled and pushed by a torrent of change and upheaval. Following the relative calm of the previous two centuries, the feudal system had firmly established itself as the norm of life in England. However, the Great Famine of 1315-1317 started a chain reaction of events that would pay out during the next century and have irrevocable consequences for church and politics in England. Following an unseasonably wet Spring and Summer in 1315 followed by unseasonable temperatures, the agricultural rhythm of England and most of Western Europe was upended. Hunger, crime, infanticide and even cannibalism were occurrences around the continent and severely challenged the claims of the thendominant Catholic Church that put a premium on the providence of God. Coupled with this horrendous famine of biblical proportions, a new and lethal threat swept through Europe and England in the mid fourteenth century (when Julian was a young girl of approximately ten years old), which would be called the black plague. This outbreak of bubonic plague would go on to further cut the population of Europe and England by more than half, and further lower population numbers after the Great Famine. These two events would prove not only disastrous in terms of human capital but they would also contribute to the growing challenges against the political and religious structures that would play themselves out during the lifetime of Julian in the fourteenth century. Due to the decreased population following the Great Famine and the outbreak of the plague during Julian’s early years, there was a growing concern over the inability of the churches in local situations to supply aid or answers to suffering congregants. As a result, the pre-reformation movement known as Lollardy (or the Lollards) became a serious threat to the Catholic establishment in England. This movement sought to cast
aside notions such as transubstantiation, the prohibition against the use of vernacular in worship and Bible translation, the baptism of infants, the heavy education of clergy and the hierarchical nature of the Church itself. Throughout Julian’s life, this Lollard movement would infuse itself into the religious and political life of England and combine with a lower population to bring about the Peasant’s Revolt in 1381 when revolutionaries infused by Lollardy and a deeper sense of workers’ rights sought to bargain with the King of England for better working, living and legal conditions for those not of the aristocratic class. While Julian does not directly mention this chaotic background context of fourteenth century England, her work’s abounding optimism and notions of love for all of humanity and creation are even more astounding given this political, societal and religious strife going on all around her. This theme of optimism flows throughout the recorded visions in the Showings. Over and above all of the other streams of theology, philosophy and mysticism, Julian’s constant optimistic emphasis on the love that God has for all of humanity and the creation and the results of this (ultimate victory over and through suffering) can be seen as the main theme of the work. This is most evident in Julian’s refrain that “All is well” as in Chapter 31’s: “I may make all things well, I can make all things well, I will make all things well, and I shall make all things well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of things shall be well.”
To have such an optimistic message about the love of God during a time of so much suffering and discord is extraordinary. Unfortunately, what we know about the person of Julian is only available through the words of Showings. We know when she was born and when she had her onset of illness at age 30. She begins the Showings with the selfidentification (with a self-deprecation based on the rhetorical tool often employed by philosophers and other writers such as Chaucer): “These Revelations were shewed to a simple creature unlettered, the year of our Lord 1373, the Thirteenth day of May.”
We also know the approximate date of when she felt as if she had processed the visions that lay behind the text of the Showings and when she decided to expand the text of Showings to include more theological reflections than the work she published shortly after her visions (1393) some twenty years later. We can see the development of her personal theology during these decades by the subtle and abrupt changes and alterations that separate the two texts across time and distance. However, her main themes (optimism of God’s love, God’s caring for all creation, the redemptive suffering through Jesus’ suffering and blood, and God’s ability to make amends for our sins through God’s own actions in history) remain true to both versions of Showings and are all combined in the rich language of mysticism of the texts. “He that made all things for love, by the same love keepeth them, and shall keep them without end.” “Here saw I a great oneing betwixt Christ and us, to mine understanding: for when He was in pain, we were in pain.” Chapter 8 “That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me: I shall save my word in all things and I shall make all things well.” Chapter 32
One of the themes of Julian that has been popular in the modern era is her interesting and authentic expression of the Trinity’s love and care for humanity by connecting Christ to a mother figure. In chapter 59, she writes: “As verily as God is our Father, so verily God is our Mother; and that shewed He in all.”
Rather than being a completely feminist take on God, Julian is uplifting the entirety of the Trinity’s existence as best as she can in the metaphor of humanity. Again, her use of this language is consistent with her overarching creative expression of the need for humanity
to accept and realize God’s love for all of creation in order that we may find redemption in times of suffering as Jesus did when he suffered on the cross (as she makes clear in the first half of Showings). In my opinion, Julian’s complete story of hopeful revelation and her life of living in self-imposed solitary confinement in the midst of a century of turbulence can be summed up by her tale of the hazelnut found in chapter 5:
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 marvelled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nought 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 he loves it. And the third, that God keeps it. But what is this to me? Truly, the Creator, the Keeper, the Lover. For until I am substantially oned to him, I may never have full rest nor true bliss. That is to say, until I be so fastened to him that there is nothing that is made between my God and me.
The three properties of the hazelnut which Julian are made privy to along with her unending fascination and explanation of how this seemingly small mundane object itself can encapsulate the great love that God has for the creation is a fitting tribute to her invocation and invitation for all of her readers to experience the rich and complex love of God on such a mystical level.