St Julian of Norwich, Spiritual Writer c. 1417 (May 8)

Saying ‘Yes’ to God

1 Ki. 19:9-13a; PS. 27; 1 Cor. 13:8-13; John 20:11-18

‘Jesus said to [Mary], “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”, and she told them that he had said these things to her.’ John 20:17-18

The one thing

‘The one thing that matters is that we always say Yes to God whenever we experience him,’ Julian said (Revelations of the Divine Love). Diagnosed with terminal illness at the age of 30, in 1373, Julian of Norwich (we don’t know her real name) received a series of 16 visions dealing with God’s love. Her health having been restored, she committed these experiences to writing, in her Revelations, which was probably the first book to be written by a woman in English.

Our Lord showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, in the palm of my hand, and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon 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 how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to nought for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding, ‘It lasteth and ever shall last for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath Being by the love of God.’ In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second that God loveth it, the third that God keepeth it.
Julian of Norwich, Revelations, V

At some point in her life, we are not sure whether it was before or after writing her Revelations, Julian took up residence in a cell attached to the Church of St Julian at Norwich, arranging for the door to be sealed. Until her death, in or around the year 1417, she accepted food and the bare necessities of life through the cell’s one small window – to which also many would come to receive help and advice.

It was a way of saying ‘Yes’ to God, which would not have appealed to many others: certainly not to Mary Magdalene, who in early days had sought a freedom of morality; and after conversion – as her flight from the tomb to find the disciples showed – valued her physical agility and freedom.

There are many ways of following Jesus, and if the way for Mother Julian was self-imposed incarceration in a small cell, who are we to criticize? In fact, we shall stand in danger of inconsistency if, when we feel God’s warm sun on our heads, and the resilience of his grass under our feet, we take our physical freedom for granted. Julian found much to do, many people to see, much to discuss with God, from her tiny cell. Are we sure that we are making the most of our freedom in saying ‘Yes’ to God?

Suggested hymns

All my hope on God is founded; It is well with my soul (When peace like a river); I’ve got peace like a river; Jesus calls us, o’er the tumult.