Julian Of Norwich-A Revelation of Love

There is a tenderness of language in Julian of Norwich’s A Revelation of Love. These sixteen mystical revelations manifested at what Julian had thought was her deathbed one night over several hours. She made a full recovery and wrote them down to share.

The language is so intimate and tender, one wonders who was the intended audience for these revelations. Were they meant for her religious community? Or lay people who could read? Or did Julian of Norwich simply want to write them down as an act of love and devotion? It is clear she is writing to someone she wants to compel to love Jesus as much as she does.

Julian uses the words that may seem antiquated to the modern reader yet we can also appreciate that she is giving language to that which is difficult to describe, a mystical spiritual experience. She refers to these experiences as “shewings”. She makes a difference between visceral or “bodily sights” and the more ethereal experience of a “ghostly sight” (139)

There are many sweet words like, “littleness”, “Loveth” and “yearning”. There is something about this tiny, intimate language that brings the reader right into the space between her and the vision on that sickbed. Like the “Shot, Reverse Shot” film technique, the camera or reader, pivots our head from Julian to Christ and back again, as opposed to watching from the door or from behind each of their bodies.

Julian describes Christ as “our clothing, that for love wrappeth us and windeth us, halseth us and all becloseth us, hangeth about us for tender love , that he may never leeve us.” (139) St Paul writes of clothing ourselves in Christ in his letter to the Galatians, as does Lauren Winner in her book Wearing God. This metaphor for God is sensory as the reader thinks of God as material against their skin. Christ, holding them, caring for them and as close as their own skin. It is a good metaphor to remind the reader of how very close Christ love is, available, present, and accessible.

Julian also writes of a vision of a hazelnut, “lying in the palme of my hand.” Again, a small item, close and between herself and the vision of Christ. Christ reveals to her in this tiny hazelnut that “in this little thing I saw three properties: the first is that God made it, the secund is that God loveth it, the thirde is that God kepth it.” (139) This tender revelation that God is “the maker, the keeper and the lover” again in the smallest of space, a hazelnut.

“Then saw I sothly that it is more worship to God and more very delite, that we faithfully pray to himselfe of his goodness and cleve therto by his grace, with true understanding and stedfast believe.” (143) In the word “cleve” Julian give the reader the image of holding onto Christ. Close as clothes and close as an embrace. But even more than that, as if we were to let go, we’d fall.

I loved this tender vocabulary. She uses the word “becloseth” so often, I found myself wanting to count. As a writer, it made me want to create a glossary of words that fashion the feeling of a piece, especially a larger project like this. This language keeps the piece in one place throughout the reading. The reader does not feel they are in a different space at the beginning of the piece than they do at the end. We are right there in the middle between Julian and Christ.