In the late fourteenth century, the mystic Saint Julian of Norwich, twenty years after receiving sixteen visions during a severe illness, wrote them down as The Revelations of Divine Love.
This weekend, I am spending most of my time literally singing the praises of someone (Jesus) in whose name millions of my people (the Jews) have been murdered. At the same time, I am celebrating a holiday during which, for centuries, we have been accused of butchering Christian babies and using their blood to make matzah.
Though my mind doesn’t usually dwell on things religious, this conjunction has put me in mind of a passage from Dame Julian’s work:
As truly as God is our Father, so just as truly is he our Mother. In our Father, God Almighty, we have our being. In our merciful Mother, we are remade and restored. Our fragmented lives are knit together, and by giving and yielding ourselves through grace to the Holy Spirit, we are made whole. “It is I, the strength and goodness of fatherhood. It is I, the wisdom of motherhood. It is I, the light and grace of holy love. It is I, the Trinity. It is I, the unity. I am the sovereign goodness in all things. It is I who teach you to love. It is I who teach you to desire. It is I who am the reward of all true desiring. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Of course, if I were a girl named Julian I might write some weird shit too.
One Response to In the late fourteenth century,