Who was Julian of Norwich?

This week our senior student team have been encouraging us through assembly to reflect on Julian of Norwich and what can be learned from her life and work.

She lived in a tiny space by herself during the Middle Ages, and chose to live a life that was dedicated to prayer and solitude. The students (with the help of Year 5) explored her story during Wednesday’s Cathedral assembly. Her story is an interesting one …

Little is known about Julian of Norwich’s early life - we don’t even know if Julian was her real name. However, in later life, she came to live in what’s called a ‘cell’: a tiny space that is connected to a church. That church was called St Julian’s and was in the city of Norwich, so she came to be known as Julian of Norwich.

The church was destroyed in bombing during the Second World War, but was rebuilt afterwards. A chapel was added in place of Julian’s cell.

Julian is thought to have been born around 1342. A few years later, the Black Death - a bubonic plague pandemic - struck Europe. During Julian’s lifetime, there were several outbreaks of plague and the disease is thought to have killed as many as three-quarters of the population of Norwich.

When she was 30, Julian became seriously ill and was close to death herself. Around this time, she had a series of religious experiences that deepened her faith in God. She wrote an account of each vision shortly afterwards, and these writings were later published under her name in a book called Revelations of Divine Love.
Her writings are unique because they are the earliest surviving English language works publicly attributed to a woman.

People would travel to hear her speak about God’s love for them, and how God cared about the small details of their lives as well as about any large problems that they were experiencing.

Julian lived the rest of her life in this small space. She is thought to have died in her seventies, having spent many years living in permanent seclusion. However, despite living in such a small space, Julian had a huge influence. Today, many people still find spiritual comfort in reading her book.

There is a short passage in Julian’s book where she writes about a small, round thing about the size of a hazelnut, which God shows her in one of her visions. Something so small might be overlooked by some people, but Julian describes carefully studying it and experiencing a sense of God’s vastness and great love as a result. In the tiny nut-like thing, she senses God’s huge love for everyone and everything.

Julian wrote the following: ‘A little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand . . . And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvelled at how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: it lasts and ever shall, for God loves it.’

In other words ‘In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.’

When Julian studies the item closely, she concludes that it helps us to better understand God’s love. She shares her belief that God made the little thing as part of his creation, and that God loves the things that he has created, and cares for them.

This same message of God’s love and care for creation was something that Julian shared with people who visited her. Her approach is a lovely example of how we can find wonder in unlikely places. I invite you to find wonder this week.

Inservi Deo et laetare