Then I truly believed that I was at the point of death. And on the third night I often thought that I was dying, and so did those who were with me.īut at this time I was very sorry and reluctant to die, not because there was anything on earth that I wanted to live for nor because I feared anything, for I trusted in God, but because I wanted to live so as to love God better and for longer, so that through the grace of longer life I might know and love God better in the bliss of heaven.Īnd yet all is ultimately well and Julian makes a full recovery:

And after this I lingered on for two days and two nights. Thus, the Short Text was composed in 1373 and the Long Text in roughly 1393:Īnd when I was thirty-and-a-half years old, God sent me a bodily sickness in which I lay for three days and three nights and on the fourth night I received all the rites of the Holy Church and did not believe that I would live until morning. Some twenty years later, she rewrote the entire text, expanding the narrative and adding commentary and theological reflection.

During this harrowing time, she received a total of sixteen “showings” or visions of the Passion of Jesus Christ, and which would lead her towards the eremitic life.Īfter a miraculous recovery, she set about recording her visions as the Revelations of Divine Love. It would be in her early thirties whilst at home, in a similar manner to Sri Ramana Maharshi, that Julian was struck down by an acute illness on 8th May 1373, subsequently lasting for nearly a week, which brought her to the brink of death. Julian’s Church in Norwich, forsaking all the trappings of the material world.Īlthough her daily needs, such as food and firewood, would have been attended to by a servant, she had effectively chosen to die unto the world, in order to focus her attention exclusively on her interior existence. It is not clear when she took ecclesiastical orders but she chose to live her life as an anchoress (deriving from the Greek word meaning “to retire”), whereby she was literally entombed in a sealed cell attached to St. Julian of Norwich (her real identity is unknown) was born in December 1342 into a wealthy family and educated at boarding school attached to Carrow Abbey nunnery. One such woman, who embraced the concept to its acme, found not only “the all and the everything” in individual oblivion but also that it was nourished and sustained by the power of love. “All shall be well, and all shall be wellīEING A NOBODY in a society obsessed with prestige and prosperity is a challenging position and yet embracing a state of utter nothingness, renouncing the clutter of worldly possessions and the preoccupation with social status, can, in fact, be a totally liberating experience. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons How love is the only meaning to life Portrait of a Woman With a Winged Bonnet.

Julian of norwich short text