- Shelley Martin -
So, you may be asking yourself why I’m standing before you delivering the homily today – I’m wondering the same. The only answer I can provide is to be careful when you borrow books from your priest or you could be standing here next.
I recently borrowed “The Complete Julian of Norwich” from Rev. Amy, which contains one of many translations of Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love. A brief history of Julian, for those unfamiliar with her: Julian was a 14th-century anchoress, living in a cell attached to the Church of St. Julian in Norwich, England. Her life there was devoted to contemplative prayer and writing Revelations, which recounts a series of 16 “showings” that she experienced from May 8th through May 13th, 1373 AD, during a nearly-fatal illness when she was 30 years old, all of which occurred before she entered the austere and secluded anchorhold of the church. This book, Julian’s Revelations, is credited as being the first book written in English by a woman, and today we celebrate her feast day.
In the reading from Isaiah, God asks, “To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, as though we were alike?” Julian’s answer is in the Canticle we read today, and more simply stated in Revelations: “As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother.” In our modern world, in the modern church (I would imagine even in some Episcopal churches today), to name God as our Mother still causes a bit of a stir. But this, this was written 600 years ago in Medieval, Catholic, England and by a WOMAN, no less! “Revelatory” doesn’t begin to describe it … “radical” comes to mind.
Within England at this time, cults of martyrs and saints had a strong and widespread impact. Saints were celebrities (for modern comparison sake), and arguably the most popular of those saints were virgins, with particular focus given to virgin martyrs. No better way to take the edge off the panic caused by wide-spread pestilence like retelling the story of a virgin, who upon being swallowed by a demonic dragon made the sign of the cross, which caused the dragon to explode and then exited triumphantly to spread the Good News -- lighthearted, right? That was St. Margaret of Antioch, by the way, if the next time you make the sign of the cross you wish to remember her by name. More to the point, England was a fevered religious stew, with story after story like this fueling the construction of saints’ shrines, sending forth pilgrims, and bringing forward visions of God. Compared to many lives of the saints, Julian’s Revelations seems tame. Or was it?
Historians and theologians are not sure of the identity of Julian of Norwich. We have her writings, but nothing approaching an authoritative biography or autobiography. The author and translator of the book that I have is Father John-Julian, founder of the Episcopal monastic Order of Julian of Norwich. He makes a strong case for Julian Erpingham -- a devout, wealthy, twice widowed, mother of three -- as the Julian we now know. As a noblewoman she would have known, arguably memorized, John’s Gospel. Julian tells us that she prayed for three things: “a memory of God’s passion, bodily sickness in youth at thirty years of age, the third was to have from God’s gift three wounds.”
Who prays like this today? Who prays to become deathly ill so that they would understand God’s truth? Julian prayed that God would see her faith and that God’s truth would be spoken. I wonder if Julian understood herself to be the woman from today’s Gospel reading while in her illness she gazed upon a crucified Christ and he said, “I am He. The one who is speaking to you.”
Novel for the time, that instead of revealing God’s power through a virgin martyr, that Jesus would reveal himself to a widowed woman, most likely not a virgin, possibly a mother. It’s easy for us to see the divinity of Mary … a virgin … but what about the divinity of a middle-aged mother of three?
One of the most beautiful revelations given to Julian, one that has been on mental repeat for me is this: “God is nearer to us than our own soul.” How can we comprehend this? How can we comprehend that intimate spiritual proximity of God?
Not to get bogged down in the particulars, but by the time Julian was an anchoress and rewriting the long version of Revelations, she would have been through childbirth, according to Fr. John-Julian. Is there any closer physical proximity than growing and bringing forth life as a mother? To compare the physical proximity and the spiritual proximity seems … inspired.
God brought us forth in creation and gave that beautiful Creation mothers to do the same. Julian understood this, she understood her divinity, and through the visions gifted to her by God, shared the splendid revelation that as God is our Father, God is more so our Mother. Amen.
Canticle R – A Song of True Motherhood; Julian of Norwich
Isaiah 46:3-5, NSRV
John 4:23-26, NSRV
The Complete Julian of Norwich. John-Julian, Fr. OJN; 2009. Paraclete Press.
Saints and Sanctity in Medieval England. Salih, Sara. https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/saints-and-sanctity-in-medieval-england. Published 31 Jan 2018. Accessed 7 May 2019.
