Dates: Sunday, July 6 through August 3 (five weeks)
Start time: 9:15 am
Location: Annex
Over the course of this five-week study we will discuss specific passages from Julian of Norwich Revelations of Divine Love. Julian (1342-C 1416), at the age of thirty, during a near fatal illness, received sixteen “showings” (visions). For more than fifteen years she reflected on those “showings.” She wrote down her insights in Revelations of Divine Love, one of the earliest texts in the English language by a woman.
Julian lived in turbulent times. She survived five cycles of the plague that ravaged the populations of England. She lived through war, social unrest, and a major crisis over Church Authority (antipopes). Against the background of such turmoil, Julian’s message to those who sought her counsel, wisdom, and spiritual direction was one of encouragement, hope, and faith in God’s unconditional and steadfast love: “All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of all thing will be well.”
In Julian’s spiritual work, Revelations of Divine Love, we encounter Julian the spiritual teacher, comforter, and practical guide. As a theologian Julian wrestles with, among others, the concepts of sin, salvation, the trinity, the Mothering attributes of God, divine grace, compassion, and Divine Love.
At the center of her reflections on her sixteen “showings” is God’s relationship with and infinite love for his Creation and compassion for the suffering of humanity. Julian tells her reader “What? You wish to know the Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning.”
Thomas Merton, had this to say about Julian of Norwich:
“Julian is without doubt one of the most wonderful of all Christian voices and she gets greater and greater in my eyes as I grow older…I think that Julian of Norwich is with Newman, the greatest English Theologian.”