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Description
Julian of Norwich
©Cecilia Lawrence
March 3rd 2023
8x10 inches
About 7 Hours
Ink, watercolor, gold ink

PRINTS CAN BE ORDERED HERE ON ETSY

“God, of Thy goodness, give me Thyself;
for Thou art enough for me,
and I can ask nothing that is less
that can be full honor to Thee.
And if I ask anything that is less,
ever shall I be in want,
for only in Thee have I all.”
~ Julian of Norwich

:+: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY :+:

Julian of Norwich (c. 1343 A.D. – c. 1416 A.D.), also known as Dame Julian or Mother Julian was a medieval English Catholic mystic and anchoress. Little is known for certain about her early life, but she lived through a time of incredible upheaval and disaster. She lived through the Black Death, which struck Norwich around 1350, and survived the major political and religious upheavals of her day. In 1373, when she was about thirty, she became so ill that she was largely paralyzed and confined to her bed. She and everyone around her thought her death was quickly approaching. When a priest came to give her the Last Rites and held up a crucifix before her eyes, she suddenly received a series of visions after beholding the crucifix mystically bleeding. These visions lasted for some hours. After she recovered, she wrote down her revelations and meditations on the “showings” that she received. She became an anchoress and lived in a call attached to St. Julian’s Church in Norwich, where she gave spiritual direction and advice to those who sought her counsel, including to her famous contemporary Margery Kempe. She was highly esteemed in her lifetime, as were her writings.

Her writings were carefully copied, but with the advent of the printing press and the English Reformation, they never found widespread publication in England until much later. Some nuns who fled England during that time brought her writings to a monastery in France where they preserved them carefully. Grace Warrack later stumbled upon the manuscript in the British Library and transcribed and published it in 1901, and since then Julian of Norwich and her writings have become much better known worldwide.

“After that the Lord brought to my mind the yearning that I had for Him in the past, and I saw that nothing stood in my way except sin (and this I observed universally in us all). And it seemed to me that if sin had not been, we would all have been pure and like to Our Lord as He made us, and thus, in my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the beginning of sin was not prevented, for then, it seemed to me, all would have been well.

I ought much to have given up this disturbing wondering, but nevertheless, I made mourning and sorrow about it without reason or discretion.

But Jesus, (who in this vision informed me of all that I needed) answered by this word and said:

‘Sin is inevitable,
but all shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing
shall be well.’

In this unadorned word ‘sin,’ Our Lord brought to my mind generally all that is not good, and the shameful despising and the uttermost tribulation that He bore for us in this life, and His dying, and all the pains and sufferings of all His created things, spiritually and bodily (for we are all in part troubled—and we shall be troubled, following our Master Jesus, until we are completely purged—that is to say, until we are fully stripped of our mortal flesh and of all our inward affections which are not truly good).

And with the beholding of this, with all the pains that ever were or ever shall be, I understood the Passion of Christ to represent the greatest pain and even more than that.

And all this pain was shown in one stroke and quickly passed over into comfort (for Our Good Lord does not wish that the soul be made fearful by this ugly sight).

But I saw not sin; for I believe it has no manner of essence nor any portion of being, nor can it be known except by the pain that is caused by it. And this pain, it is something for a time, as I see it, because it purges and forces us to know ourselves and ask for mercy. But the Passion of Our Lord is comfort for us against all this, and so is His blessed Will.

And because of the tender love that Our Good Lord has to all that shall be saved, He comforts quickly and sweetly, meaning thus:

‘It is true that sin is cause of all this pain,
but all shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well.’

These words were said most tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any that shall be saved.

Then it would be a great unkindness to blame God for my sin, seeing He does not blame me for sin.

In these same words I saw a marvelous, high, secret hidden in God, which secret He shall openly make known to us in Heaven. In this secret knowledge we shall truly see the reason why He allowed sin to come, and in this sight we shall endlessly rejoice in our Lord God.”

~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love; Chapter 27, translated by John Julian, OJN

Description
Julian of Norwich
©Cecilia Lawrence
March 3rd 2023
8x10 inches
About 7 Hours
Ink, watercolor, gold ink

PRINTS CAN BE ORDERED HERE ON ETSY

“God, of Thy goodness, give me Thyself;
for Thou art enough for me,
and I can ask nothing that is less
that can be full honor to Thee.
And if I ask anything that is less,
ever shall I be in want,
for only in Thee have I all.”
~ Julian of Norwich

:+: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY :+:

Julian of Norwich (c. 1343 A.D. – c. 1416 A.D.), also known as Dame Julian or Mother Julian was a medieval English Catholic mystic and anchoress. Little is known for certain about her early life, but she lived through a time of incredible upheaval and disaster. She lived through the Black Death, which struck Norwich around 1350, and survived the major political and religious upheavals of her day. In 1373, when she was about thirty, she became so ill that she was largely paralyzed and confined to her bed. She and everyone around her thought her death was quickly approaching. When a priest came to give her the Last Rites and held up a crucifix before her eyes, she suddenly received a series of visions after beholding the crucifix mystically bleeding. These visions lasted for some hours. After she recovered, she wrote down her revelations and meditations on the “showings” that she received. She became an anchoress and lived in a call attached to St. Julian’s Church in Norwich, where she gave spiritual direction and advice to those who sought her counsel, including to her famous contemporary Margery Kempe. She was highly esteemed in her lifetime, as were her writings.

Her writings were carefully copied, but with the advent of the printing press and the English Reformation, they never found widespread publication in England until much later. Some nuns who fled England during that time brought her writings to a monastery in France where they preserved them carefully. Grace Warrack later stumbled upon the manuscript in the British Library and transcribed and published it in 1901, and since then Julian of Norwich and her writings have become much better known worldwide.

“After that the Lord brought to my mind the yearning that I had for Him in the past, and I saw that nothing stood in my way except sin (and this I observed universally in us all). And it seemed to me that if sin had not been, we would all have been pure and like to Our Lord as He made us, and thus, in my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the beginning of sin was not prevented, for then, it seemed to me, all would have been well.

I ought much to have given up this disturbing wondering, but nevertheless, I made mourning and sorrow about it without reason or discretion.

But Jesus, (who in this vision informed me of all that I needed) answered by this word and said:

‘Sin is inevitable,
but all shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing
shall be well.’

In this unadorned word ‘sin,’ Our Lord brought to my mind generally all that is not good, and the shameful despising and the uttermost tribulation that He bore for us in this life, and His dying, and all the pains and sufferings of all His created things, spiritually and bodily (for we are all in part troubled—and we shall be troubled, following our Master Jesus, until we are completely purged—that is to say, until we are fully stripped of our mortal flesh and of all our inward affections which are not truly good).

And with the beholding of this, with all the pains that ever were or ever shall be, I understood the Passion of Christ to represent the greatest pain and even more than that.

And all this pain was shown in one stroke and quickly passed over into comfort (for Our Good Lord does not wish that the soul be made fearful by this ugly sight).

But I saw not sin; for I believe it has no manner of essence nor any portion of being, nor can it be known except by the pain that is caused by it. And this pain, it is something for a time, as I see it, because it purges and forces us to know ourselves and ask for mercy. But the Passion of Our Lord is comfort for us against all this, and so is His blessed Will.

And because of the tender love that Our Good Lord has to all that shall be saved, He comforts quickly and sweetly, meaning thus:

‘It is true that sin is cause of all this pain,
but all shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well.’

These words were said most tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any that shall be saved.

Then it would be a great unkindness to blame God for my sin, seeing He does not blame me for sin.

In these same words I saw a marvelous, high, secret hidden in God, which secret He shall openly make known to us in Heaven. In this secret knowledge we shall truly see the reason why He allowed sin to come, and in this sight we shall endlessly rejoice in our Lord God.”

~ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love; Chapter 27, translated by John Julian, OJN