Revelations of Divine Love

by Julian of Norwich

And our Lord, both for our comfort and out of his familiarity, showed Saint John of Beverley in highest glory, and brought to my mind how he was a fellow countryman and well known by us. And God simply called him Saint John of Beverley as we do, and that with a most glad and sweet expression, showing that in his sight, he is a most treasured saint in heaven, full of glory. And with this he made clear that as a youth of tender years he was a dear servant to God, both loving him and fearing him. Yet God allowed him to fall, mercifully keeping him so that he did not die, nor lose any time. And afterwards God raised him to abundantly more grace; and for his meek and contrite life, God has given him many joys in heaven, surpassing that which he would have had if he had not fallen. And to show this is true on earth, God performs many miracles around his body.

The Holy Spirit leads them to confession, with a will to show their sins nakedly and truly, with great sorrow and great shame at having defiled the fair image of God.

By contrition we are made clean; by compassion we are made ready and by true longing for God we are made worthy. These are three means, as I understand, whereby all souls come to heaven; that is to say, those who have been sinners on earth and shall be saved, for by these three medicines it is fitting that every soul be healed.

Our courteous Lord does not will that his servants despair at their frequent or grievous falling; for our falling does not hinder his love for us.

This is the sovereign friendship of our courteous Lord: that he keeps us so tenderly while we continue to sin. And furthermore he touches us quite secretly and shows us our sin by the sweet light of mercy and grace.

And it was shown to me there’s no harder hell than sin; for a normal soul has no hell but sin.

Our Lord is so glad and merry with our prayer; and he looks out for them and longs to receive it, for with his grace he makes us like himself in condition as we are by nature. And this is his blissful will. Therefore he says this: ‘Pray inwardly even though you imagine it does not help you; for it is profitable, though you do not feel it and see nothing; yes, even though you think you can do nothing. For in dryness and in barrenness, in sickness and in feebleness, then is your prayer especially pleasant to me, though you imagine it helps you but little. And it is the same with all your believing prayer in my sight.’

We enjoy the Lord truly when we are thanking.

Prayer ones the soul to God; for though the soul is always like God in nature and substance when restored by grace, it is often unlike God in its condition, because of human sin. Then prayer becomes a witness that the soul wills as God wills, and it comforts the conscience and leads us to grace. And so he teaches us to pray, and to trust mightily that we will find grace. He beholds us in love and would make us partners in his good deeds; and so he stirs us to pray for that which it pleases him to do.

It is as if he said: ‘What can please me more than that you ask me, mightily, wisely and earnestly, to do that thing that I shall do?’ And so the soul by prayer is in harmony with God.

But when we do not see him like this, because of our failing, then we feel both need and reason to pray to Jesus, to bring life back to ourselves. For when thesoul is storm-tossed and troubled, and left to itself by unrest, then it is time to pray, to make it self pliable and obliging to God.

we come to him now in this life by many secret touches of sweet spiritual sights and feelings, given to us as our simple souls may bear. And this is done, and shall be done, by the grace of the Holy Spirit,

But when of his special grace he shows himself here, he strengthens the creature above its self, and measures the showing, after his own will, as it most benefits them in that moment.

Truth sees God, wisdom beholds God and from these comes the third; that is, a holy and marvellous delight in God, which is love. Where truly there is truth and wisdom, then truly there is love, arising from them both.

The first judgement comes from God’s rightfulness; that is, from his high and endless love; and this is that fair and sweet judgement that was shown throughout this beautiful revelation,

which I saw no manner of blame assigned. And though this was sweet and delightful to behold, I could not be fully at peace; and this was because of the judgement of holy Church, which I had previously understood and which was continually in my sight; for by this judgement, I understood that sinners are sometimes worthy of blame and wrath. Yet I could not see God in either of these, and therefore my desire to understand was more than I can tell. For the higher judgement was shown by God himself, and therefore I must believe it; and yet the lower judgement was previously taught me by holy Church, and so I could not ignore this lower judgement.

TWO things belong to our soul as duty: the one is that we reverently marvel, and the other that we meekly suffer, ever finding joy in God. For he would have us understand that in a short time we shall see clearly in himself all that we desire.

If we saw God continually, we would have no such mischievous feelings, nor the energy or yearning that feeds sin. .

And therefore we often fail in his sight, and presently fall into our self, where we find no feeling of right. There we find nothing but contrariness within ourselves, which is the old root of our first sin, with all the sins that follow from our contrivances.

For through our sin and wretchedness we possess a wretched and continual resistance to peace and love. And this he showed often in his lovely look of compassion and pity. The ground of mercy is love and the working of mercy is to keep us in this love.

Mercy, by love, allows us to fail to a degree and the degree we fail is the degree we fall; and the degree we fall, is the degree we die; and die we must, as we lose sight and feeling of God, who is our life. Our failing is dreadful; our falling is shameful and our dying is sorrowful; but in all this, the sweet eye of pity and love is never lifted from us, nor does the working of mercy cease.

I gazed on the nature of mercy and I gazed on the nature of grace, which have different ways of working, though both are from one love. Mercy has a nature full of pity which belongs to motherhood in tender love; and grace has an honouring nature which belongs to the royal lordship, yet in the same love. Mercy works like this: it keeps, suffers, quickens and heals; and all is tenderness of love. Grace works like this: it raises, rewards and endlessly transcends what our longing and our labours deserve, spilling everywhere and showing the high and plentiful generosity of God’s royal Lordship in his marvellous courtesy; and all of this from the abundance of love. For grace works our fearful failings into abundant and endless solace; and grace works our shameful falling into high and honouring elevation; and grace works our sorrowful dying into holy, blissful life.

And we shall know a quality of the blessed love of God which we could never have known without passing through our troubles.

But we are not blissfully safe, and possessors of eternal joy, until such time as we are in peace and in love; that is to say, content with God and with all his works and judgments; and accepting and peaceable with our self and with our fellow Christians and with all who God loves, as love invites. And this is done by God’s goodness in us.

And in this way our good Lord Jesus has taken on himself all our blame, and therefore our Father neither can nor will assign to us any more blame than he does to his own Son, the dear Christ. And so it was that he was the servant, even before his coming to earth, standing ready before the Father in purpose, until the time when he would send him to do that wonderful deed by which humankind was brought again into heaven.

And thus I saw that God rejoices that he is our father, and God rejoices that he is our mother, and God rejoices that he is our spouse and that our soul is his loved wife. And Christ rejoices that he is our brother, and Jesus rejoices that he is our Saviour. These are five particular joys, as I understand, in which he wills that we find joy; him praising, him thanking, him loving and him endlessly blessing.

And if we by our blindness and our wretchedness we fall at any time, we should readily rise, knowing the sweet touch of grace, and with all our will amend ourselves according to the teaching of holy Church, according to the grievousness of the sin, and go straight to God in love. We should neither, on the one hand, fall too low and incline to despair; nor, on the other hand, be over-reckless, as if it were an unimportant matter. But nakedly we are to acknowledge our feebleness, knowing that but for this keeping grace, we cannot stand for even the twinkling of an eye. And so we reverently cling to God, trusting in him alone; for one is wise as God sees it, and one is wise as humans see it. For it belongs to us meekly to accuse ourselves; and it belongs to the proper goodness of our Lord God courteously to excuse us.

In the showing I saw and understood clearly that in every soul who shall be saved, is a godly will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall; and this will is so good that it may never will evil, but always and continually wills good and works good in the sight of God.

For the almighty truth of the Trinity is our Father, for he made us and keeps us in him; and the deep wisdom of the Trinity is our mother, in whom we are all enclosed; and the high goodness of the Trinity is our Lord, and in him we are enclosed and he in us. We are enclosed in the Father, enclosed in the Son and we are enclosed in the Holy Spirit. And the Father is enclosed in us, and the Son is enclosed in us and the Holy Spirit is enclosed in us: all might, all wisdom, all goodness; one God, one Lord.

And whether despairing or happy, God wills that we should understand and hold by faith that we are more truly in heaven than on earth.

For truly I saw that our substance is in God.

And so our Mother works for us in many ways, so that our parts are kept together. For in our Mother Christ we profit and increase; in mercy he reforms and restores us, and by the virtue of his passion, death and rising, he ones us to our substance. And so our Mother works mercy in all his children who are yielding and obedient to him.

Thus in our Father, God almighty, we have our being; and in our Mother of mercy we have our reforming and restoring; for in him our parts are oned and we are all made perfect humans; and by this recompense and gracious gift of the Holy Spirit, we are fulfilled.

In him, the ground of motherhood both begins and with the sweet keeping of love, endlessly follows. As truly as God is our Father, so truly God is our Mother; and he showed that in everything; and especially in these sweet words where he says: ‘It is I.’ That is to say, ‘It is I, the might and the goodness of the Fatherhood; it is I, the wisdom of the Motherhood; it is I, the light and the grace that is all blessed love; it is I, the Trinity; it is I, the unity. I am the sovereign goodness in all manner of things. I am the one who makes you to love; I am the one who makes you to long. It is I who is the endless fulfilling of all true desires.’

That is to say, although our high God is sovereign wisdom of all, in this low place he displayed and dressed himself in our poor flesh, fully prepared to perform the service and role of motherhood in all things.

And he makes us to love all who he loves, for his love’s sake; and to be delighted with him and all his works. And when we fall, he raises us hastily by his lovely calling and gracious touching. And when we are thus strengthened by his sweet work, then with all our will we choose, by his sweet grace, to be his servants and his lovers forever without end.

For it was necessary that we fall, and necessary for us to see it. For

if we never fell, we should not know how feeble and how wretched we are in ourselves; and also we should not fully comprehend the marvellous love of our maker.

For strong and marvellous is the love which cannot not, nor will not, be broken by sin.

It is common first to fall and later to see it; and both are of the mercy of God.

For one single person may often be broken, as it seems to them selves, but the whole body of holy Church was never broken, nor ever shall be. And therefore it is a sure thing, good and gracious, to will both meekly and mightily to be fastened and oned to our mother, holy Church; that is, to Christ Jesus.

And so I understood that all his blessed children who were born from him by nature, shall be brought again to him by grace.

It is therefore a sovereign comfort and sweet realisation in a loving soul that we shall be taken from pain. For in this promise I saw the marvellous compassion our Lord has for us in our woe, and a courteous promise of complete deliverance.

And so I understood that whoever wilfully chooses God in this life, for love, may be sure that they are loved without end; and that this endless love works grace in them.

Ah! What a wretch I am! This was a great sin and a great unkindness that I, distracted by a little bodily pain, so unwisely lost for a moment all the comfort of this blessed showing of our Lord God. Here you can see the sort of person I am. But our courteous Lord would not leave me here.

And by this I understood in truth that our soul may never find rest in things that are beneath its self.

‘Know well, it was no raving you saw today. But take it and believe it, and keep yourself in it and comfort yourself with it, and trust yourself to it; and you shall not be overcome.’

And this he showed to show that we should gladly and wisely bear our pains, for that is very pleasing for him and of endless benefit to us. And the reason why we are so troubled by them is our ignorance of love.

For some of us believe that God is almighty and may do all; and that he is all-wise and can do all; but that he is all-love and will do all, there we stop short. And it is this ignorance that most hinders God’s lovers, in my eyes.

And if our enemy wins anything from our falling, for that is his pleasure, he loses a great deal more in our rising by love and meekness. And this glorious rising is a great sorrow and pain to him, and such is his hate for our soul, that he burns continually in envy. And all the sorrow he would inflict on us, shall be turned on him self. And for this reason our Lord scorned him, and it made me laugh loudly.