THE SPIRAL OF LOVE
John
19:16b- 19; 25b-30
“I was taught that love is our Lord’s
meaning.,”
(Showings
Julian of Norwich)
Julian
of Norwich is the second Christian mystic I have chosen for our Lenten
meditations. Thomas Merton regarded
Julian was one of the greatest English theologians. She was certainly the first. As she is also Isobel's favourite, I have
asked Isobel to write today's meditation, with a little bit of editing from my
side. Julian's character is revealed through her writing, and both who
she was and what she wrote have been very meaningful to Isobel since she first
came across her in the 1980s. Although
her most famous saying is: "All shall be well, and all manner of things
shall be well." Her last words that have come down to us sum up what she
discovered in contemplating Christ on the cross: “I was taught that love is our Lord’s meaning,”
An important reminded of the purpose of this Lenten journey to the cross.
Julian
was a young woman, only thirty year old, living in Norwich in England in 1343 when
she fell seriously ill. As she lay dying she had a series of visions in which
she saw, as though she were present, Jesus being crucified, and other
“showings“ as she called them. She recovered from her illness and entered a
cell attached to the church of St Julian and became an anchorite, sealed in her
cell for a life of contemplation, though frequently visited for counsel. She wrote
down what she had seen in her visions and for the next twenty years meditated
on their meaning, questioning what she had been shown, wrestling with the
issues raised, and receiving other insights from God. These she recorded in a
book in the language she spoke, the language of Chaucer, making her the first
woman author in the English language.
The
Medieval world Julian inhabited is not our world, and therefore it is sometimes
difficult to relate to it, but once we break through that barrier, we discover
a depth of spirituality that we often lack.
After all, her world was also much like our own. It was a world of war and violence, of the
plague, poverty and much suffering. So
keep that in mind as we listen to Julian speak.
She was a woman of her time, but she also speaks to our time. Amid our busyness and noise, her
contemplative life-style calls us to discover God in the silence.
Julian
starts by telling us that she had three wishes or longings in her Christian
life. In her own words,
My wish was for God to give me three graces: the first
was to experience, as though I were present, Christ’s Passion; the second was a
bodily sickness and the third was three wounds. I already felt deeply about
Christ’s Passion but I longed for more. I wanted, by God’s grace, to feel as
though I were actually there with Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ other friends – to
see with my own eyes what he suffered for me. I wanted to suffer with him as
others who loved him had done. (chap. 2)
The second grace she asked for strikes us today as
very strange. She desired a ‘bodily sickness’, something just short of actual
death. Being aware that even then this was unusual, she added that the first
two graces should fall within God’s will for her.
On the eighth day of May in 1373, God granted
Julian’s second ‘wish’ along with it the first. She fell seriously ill. When it seemed death was near,
her curate was sent for; he gave her the Last Rites and held a crucifix in
front of her. As she felt death closing in, she remembered her wish for the
second wound - that Christ’s pains would be her pains - to lead her nearer to
God. She then saw Christ on the cross as he hung in agony. Her description is vivid and realistic,
picturing Christ's blood streaming down his face from the crown of thorns. She writes: "It came to me, truly and powerfully, that he, who
is both God and a man, and who suffered for me, was now showing this to me
without any intermediary." This is the first of Julian's Showings.
She saw the crucifixion as though she was there but didn’t
exaggerate it for the sake of morbid effect. She simply, longed to “experience
the Passion as though she were present”.
The hideousness of the crucifixion, brought her real physical pain, yet
she also experienced great joy.
For in this death there is life,
In this suffering, joy,
in this hideous act,
the turning point of history:
and Christ who is highest and noblest,
mightiest and most honourable,
is also lowest and humblest,
and graciously our friend.
Rejoice and delight in this
and live with his strength and grace.
The vision affected her deeply as she contemplated its
meaning and saw more vividly Christ’s agony and the blood flowing for the
redemption of humankind. She even began to regret that she had ever even
thought of asking to be present. Then she was pained at the thought that she
wanted to escape from it. When it all became too much to bear Julian
wanted to turn her gaze away from the cross towards heaven to find solace. We would surely do the same. Isobel writes:
There is so much suffering,
for so many, for so long:
it disturbs us, depresses us,
threatens to suck us into its black depths.
Julian felt the same,
for she saw the suffering of Christ
on the cross,
...
It became too much to bear,
and she wanted to look away,
to look to heaven
for there was safety
and an end to grief.
But she did not.
She chose to keep on looking at Christ,
staying with his suffering.
So she came to see that
Christ was her heaven,
and the joy that came later,
came only because she stayed her gaze
on the crucified Christ.
Julian's language night not be everybody's cup of tea, but
she takes us deeply into the meaning of Christ's passion as we struggle with
our own pain. She was a person full of
good sense and warmth, whose vivid imagery expresses a gentle humanity. Instead of the "spiral of violence"
we encounter in the world, she offers us a "spiral of love." But it all began as she stood in
contemplation with Mary at the foot of the cross and expressed in her final words: “I was taught that love is our Lord’s
meaning.”
Isobel de Gruchy
Volmoed
9 March
Lent
2
See Isobel de Gruchy Marking all things Well: Finding Spiritual
strength with Julian of Norwich (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2012)
No comments:
Post a Comment