All Will Be Well

A Sacred Sweetness
Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Today, treat yourself to reading directly from Julian. I am using Mirabai Starr’s wonderful translation of Julian’s Showings, which is also aptly called Revelations of Divine Love. This is from her Long Text, chapter 52.

God rejoices that he is our Father. God rejoices that he is our Mother. God rejoices that he is our Beloved and we are his true lover. Christ rejoices that he is our Brother. Jesus rejoices that he is our Savior. These are five supreme joys and he wants us to rejoice in them, too, and praise him, thanking and loving and endlessly blessing him.

During our lives here on earth, we experience a wondrous mixture of well and woe. We hold inside us both the glory of the Risen Christ and the misery of the Fallen Adam. Christ protects us in our dying and, through his gracious touch, uplifts us and reassures us that all will be well. . . . We are so fragmented, afflicted in our feelings in so many ways, that we hardly know where to turn for comfort. The various pains and transgressions of this life fill our hearts with sorrow and cloud the eyes of our souls.

But we cultivate our intention and wait for God. We have faith in his mercy and grace, and trust that he is working within us. In his goodness, he opens the eyes of our understanding and gives us insight. Sometimes we glimpse more, sometimes we see less, depending on what God gives us the ability to receive. Now he elevates us; now he allows us to come tumbling down.

The mixture of sorrow and joy is so powerful that we cannot figure out how to handle it all, let alone assess how our fellow spiritual seekers are doing. The diversity of feelings can be overwhelming. And yet, in those moments when we sense the presence of God, we surrender to him, truly willing to be with him, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength. This holy assent is all that matters. It eclipses all the wicked inclinations inside us—physical and spiritual—that might lead us to miss the mark.

Sometimes, however, that sacred sweetness lies deeply buried, and we fall again into blindness, which leads to all kinds of sorrow and tribulation. So we must take comfort in the essential article of our faith that teaches us not to give into our negative impulses, but to draw strength from Christ, who is our defender against all harm. We need to stand up against evil, even if to do so causes discomfort—even pain—and pray for the time when God will once again reveal himself and fill our hearts with the sweetness of his presence. And so we remain in this muddle all the days of our lives. But our Beloved wants us to trust that he is always with us.

With such deep and tender wisdom, is it any wonder that Julian is one of my favorite mystics—and human beings?

Reference:
The Showings of Julian of Norwich: A New Translation, Mirabai Starr (Hampton Roads: 2013), 142–143.

Story from Our Community:
I am now 100 years old, so my story is too long to tell but I would like to share these few lines I wrote in 1981: “Silence is the language of love / Surrender its activity / Emptiness its fulfillment.” Thank you for the meditations, which I read every morning. Blessings on Fr. Richard and you all. —Janet C.

Image credit: Belinda Rain, Nevada — South Lake Tahoe, California (detail), 1972 photograph, public domain, National Archives.

Image inspiration: A butterfly alights on a flower after rain—a hopeful parallel to the delicate, sometimes hesitant, unfolding of the human soul after storms of life.