The Message of Julian
of Norwich
‘All Will Be Well, and All Manner of Things Will Be Well’
By Bridget Green
“[God] did not say 'You shall not be tempest-tossed...But He did say 'You shall not be overcome.' God wants us to heed these words so that we shall always be strong in trust, both in sorrow and in joy.”
he was a medieval English anchoress of a convent tucked away in East
Anglia, far from London’s busy streets. But Julian of Norwich has a message for today's Catholics: “[God] did not say 'You shall not be tempest-tossed...But he did say, 'You shall not be overcome.' God wants us to heed these words so that we shall always be strong in trust, both is sorrow and in joy.” As many of us are having our comfortable faith tested by today's climate, I believe a revisit of Julian's teaching may be in order.
Julian lived in the 1300s in Norwich and served as an Anchoress, which effectively meant that she never left her room attached to the church. There, she wrote the first book in English by a woman, an account of the “showings” she claimed to have received from Christ in 1373.
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