“And All Shall Be Well”

Julian of Norwich

(c. 1342–c. 1416)

The solemn group processed to the cell as the final notes of the somber requiem hung in the air. Making the sign of the cross, the bishop blessed the space and led the woman inside, sprinkling ashes over her head and shoulders and scattering them across the cold, stone floor. Then, leaving the woman inside the tiny, barren room, he stepped across the threshold, shutting the heavy wooden door behind him and bolting the lock from the outside. Julian of Norwich, the woman who remained alone behind the locked door, would spend more than forty years in the small room, crossing the threshold only one time—when her corpse was carried over it to the grave.

The Life of an Anchoress

Julian of Norwich was a medieval anchoress—a holy woman who sequestered herself in order to devote her entire life to God. The practice of such extreme solitude was rooted in the traditions of the fourth-century Desert Fathers, who retreated from the cities to live alone in poverty and austerity in order to nurture a deep connection with God. The English word anchorite is derived from the Greek verb meaning “to retire.” An anchoress literally retired from the world, sealing herself into a small enclosure, called an anchorhold, which was usually adjacent or connected to the village church. The rite of enclosure, with the sprinkling of dust, the final blessings, and the bolting of the door, symbolized the death of the anchoress—she was considered dead to the world, entombed with Christ.

The anchoress, though confined, was not entirely secluded. Julian’s anchorhold had at least two windows, as was typically the case. One window opened to the inside of the chapel so that she could follow the daily Mass and receive Holy Communion. A second window opened to either the outside or a parlor so that the anchoress could counsel visitors who sought her guidance. And then finally the door opened to a separate room in which a servant stayed. (This room was connected to the outside world so the servant could come and go.) The servant was responsible for the real-world necessities of the anchoress—cooking, cleaning, emptying the chamber pot, shopping, and other chores that the anchoress was not allowed to do for herself.

Julian never mentioned her role as counselor or spiritual advisor in her own writing, but we know from her medieval contemporary Margery Kempe that she performed this duty. Kempe wrote in her memoir about visiting the anchoress in 1412 or 1413 to seek advice and spiritual counsel regarding her own dramatic visions. Modern scholars surmise that while most of her daily hours were devoted to prayer and contemplation, Julian probably spent a few hours a week counseling visitors through her window.

Contemporary scholars know little about Julian’s personal life, including her birth name, birth year, and year of death, though it’s estimated that she was born around 1342–43 and died in approximately 1416. Nor do they know the exact date and the reason for her entry into the anchorhold. Some speculate that she was a laywoman, perhaps a widow whose husband and children had perished in the Black Death, which is thought to have decimated up to a third of Norwich’s population at that time. Other scholars suggest she may have been a nun. What we can conclude is that Julian likely considered the life of an anchoress to be the best way to devote her life to prayer and God.

The Visions

As a young girl, Julian prayed specifically for three rather unusual gifts from God: to see and experience Christ’s crucifixion as if she were actually present, to suffer from a near-death illness, and to be afflicted with “three wounds”—contrition, compassion, and a full-hearted longing for God.

Her prayers were answered in the spring of 1373, when, at the age of thirty, Julian lay on her deathbed for seven days. A priest was summoned to administer last rites, and when he placed a crucifix at eye level, he urged her to fix her gaze on the form of Jesus as she journeyed from this life to the next. As her breathing became painful and labored, she looked steadily at the cross, until “suddenly in that moment all of my pain left me, and I was as sound, particularly in the upper part of my body, as ever I was before or since.” Julian concluded that she was experiencing a miraculous relief from the pain in death, and those around her assumed she was on the verge of dying as well. At one point, her mother, thinking her daughter had passed, reached out to close her eyes.

But Julian didn’t die. Instead, over a period of days, she experienced a series of sixteen visions, which she would later refer to as “shewings” in The Short Text and The Long Text, the writings that would compose The Revelations of Divine Love. She saw the bloody body of Christ on the cross—not static and immobile, but in full color, as if he were suffering right there before her eyes. Later she witnessed another vision as Christ’s countenance transformed from the pall of death into one of joy and peace. She also marveled as she was shown “something small, no bigger than a hazel-nut, lying in the palm of my hand,” a vision on which she would later base her theology of creation. During these visions, Julian was also assaulted by the devil, whom she described as appearing in a foul stench, a great heat, smoke, and chatterings and mutterings in her ears.

Initially Julian chalked up these visions as illness-induced hallucinations—“rantings,” as she called them. It wasn’t until a priest defined them as spiritual visions that she began to have second thoughts about their nature and source. Still, she was quick to point out later that it was not the revelations themselves that singled her out as special or holy, but the fact that these visions helped her to love God more deeply and fully, and thus, through her, helped others do the same. “I am not good because of the revelations,” wrote Julian in The Long Text, “but only if I love God better. . . . For I am sure there are many who never had revelations or visions, but only the common teaching of Holy Church, who love God better than I.”

Love Was His Meaning

Despite the fact that Julian lived in a time of rampant disease, death, and turmoil, her theology was surprisingly optimistic. As biographer Grace Jantzen points out, although Julian experienced sixteen separate “shewings,” all sixteen—from the opening words of the first book to the last chapter—revolved around a single consistent theme: God’s everlasting and ever-present love. “Know it well, love was his meaning,” she wrote in The Revelations. “Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same.” The passion—Christ’s crucifixion—was, as Julian understood it, the supreme manifestation of God’s love.

Julian’s liberal theology was far from typical for the time, but her status as an anchoress protected her from accusations of heresy. While many of her contemporaries argued that the Black Death was a sign of God’s punishment of the wicked, Julian believed in a broader, more merciful theology, suggesting that God demonstrated only love, never wrath, for his people. Julian even applied her understanding of God’s love to sin, which, contrary to the medieval Roman Catholic Church’s stance, she viewed not as evil or the work of the devil but as a necessity for bringing one to self-knowledge. Sin, she argued, was a necessary part of free will because it created a greater understanding of the need for God’s grace. She even went as far as to claim that God did not forgive our sins. “I saw truly that our Lord was never angry, and never will be,” she wrote. “Because he is God, he is good, he is truth, he is love, he is peace; and his power, his wisdom, his charity and his unity do not allow him to be angry. . . . And between God and our soul there is neither wrath nor forgiveness in his sight. For our soul is so wholly united, through his own goodness, that between God and our soul nothing can interpose.”

Delving Deeply

While Julian was certainly grateful for her revelations, she didn’t simply accept them complacently without further exploration. She didn’t hesitate to ask God specific questions about her visions from him, and she often grappled with his words in an attempt to uncover his truth. When God said something that puzzled her, Julian dug into it, probing for greater understanding.

For instance, in one of her visions, God said this to her: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” (an oft-quoted phrase and, incidentally, incorporated five centuries later by T. S. Eliot into his poem Little Gidding). For Julian, living in a plague-infested, war-torn, suffering society rife with illness, death, and dissent, this statement didn’t make any sense at all. When God told Julian, “All shall be well,” she questioned him, probing for a sufficiently concrete answer that could be applied practically in everyday life. She received an answer from God, but it wasn’t as specific as she would have liked. “I saw hidden in God an exalted and wonderful mystery, which will make plain and we shall know in heaven,” she wrote about her vision. “In this knowledge we shall truly see the cause why he allowed sin to come, and in this sight we shall rejoice forever.” Sometimes, as in this case, Julian was forced to accept that a concrete answer couldn’t always be uncovered, and that God’s proclamations required faith rather than a practical, rational understanding.

You Will Not Be Overcome

Julian wrestled with and contemplated the meaning of her visions over her entire lifetime, and The Revelations of Divine Love was her attempt to communicate God’s message to her fellow Christians. Although many questions remained unanswered, Julian’s conclusion—her final words in The Revelations—offered light and hope:

And this word: Thou shalt not be overcome, was said full clearly and full mightily, for assuredness and comfort against all tribulations that may come. He said not: Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be afflicted; but He said: Thou shalt not be overcome. God willeth that we take heed to these words, and that we be ever strong in sure trust, in weal and woe. For He loveth and enjoyeth us, and so willeth He that we love and enjoy Him and mightily trust in Him; and all shall be well.

While she didn’t always find a concrete answer, especially to her questions about the existence of sin and suffering, she did offer a convicting example of the depth and breadth of God’s love—words as deeply compelling to modern readers as they were to her contemporaries more than five hundred years ago

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