by Judy Chiarelli

Suffering is a paradox. The physical and emotional pain of suffering can lead to isolation and loneliness, but it can also open us up to intense experiences of the love and care of God, experiences that we might never have had otherwise.

Many Christian spiritual masters have embraced suffering as a path to holiness. A great spiritual master who contemplated suffering and its effects on the body and soul is Julian of Norwich (1342–1416 or 1429), medieval anchoress, writer, and mystic.

An Anchoress
Julian was an anchoress, a hermit who lived in an enclosed cell attached to a church. Her birth name and family are not known, but because she lived attached to the church of St. Julian in the English town of Norwich, she either took or was later given that name. As a contemplative hermit within an urban community, Julian reminded townspeople of what should be central in their lives: Christ and prayer.

An anchoress voluntarily chose to be walled into a small room attached to the church. A slit in the wall faced the church, through which the anchoress could observe worship and receive food. A barred window gave her access to the outside world. Once walled in, the anchoress never left her quarters. Her sole activities were prayer and contemplation of God.

The anchorite movement (anchoress is the feminine form) was particularly strong in 14th–century England, with several books written to guide women in the enclosed life. The most famous, Ancrene Riwle (Rule for Anchoresses), was written for three sisters sealed into one enclosure. One amusing passage from the book declares that anchoresses were not to own any cows as they were too cumbersome and distracting, but that they might keep one cat. Julian is often pictured in contemporary iconography with a cat.

The showings
In May of 1373, during a serious illness, Julian of Norwich experienced revelations from God in the form of 16 visions. She first experienced 15 visions, which were confirmed by the 16th. When she recovered from her near–death illness, she wrote down her initial description of the visions in a short book she called The Showings. (This first version is called the "Short Text" or ST.) Over the next 20 years, Julian was given spiritual insight into these visions through her life of prayer and contemplation. She then wrote a longer version of her book, known as the "Long Text" (LT), that included her spiritual insights about the visions.

It is believed that her book is the first written in the English language by a woman. She writes at the beginning: "Just because I am a woman, must I therefore believe that I must not tell you about the goodness of God?"

Divine revelations
Julian’s life was transformed on that day in May 1373. She described her visions as three kinds of revelatory experiences melded into one. One experience was bodily, where she saw a physical reality. Another was interiorly, through words dictated into her understanding. And the third she called a spiritual vision, an insight allowing her to understand the significance of the visions. Thus, Julian experienced God’s revelation with all of her being: physical, spiritual, intellectual, sensory, and instinctive.

Suffering as the way to Christ
Julian saw suffering as a way to draw close to Christ. She considered Jesus’ suffering which culminated in his death on the cross to be the model for the spiritual life. Before her visions, she prayed for a greater understanding of Christ’s suffering. In her book, she acknowledged that she had prayed for three gifts from God: vivid perception of the Passion of Christ, her own bodily sickness to the point of death, and three "wounds": contrition, compassion, and earnest longing for God.

Julian’s first visions focused on the Passion of Christ, and she observed his suffering and death in great detail. She described Christ’s pain and her horror at seeing the One she loved suffer so intensely. She writes that suffering is just as painful, if not more so, for those who love the one in torment.

Because her visions alternated between suffering and extreme joy, Julian was confused. She then understood what God was telling her: that unity with Christ–even in suffering–is bliss. Bliss is joy, peace, and trust in God.

No matter how bad the suffering, a Christian who is united with Christ knows that all will be well. This kind of bliss takes a person beyond the boundaries of the suffering in this world and into a place of peace and oneness with God.

Julian writes, "So it is God’s will that we should hold on to gladness with all our might, for bliss lasts eternally, and pain passes and shall vanish completely for those who are saved. And therefore it is not God’s will that we should be guided by feelings of pain, grieving and mourning over them, but should quickly pass beyond them and remain in eternal joy."

As Julian contemplated and embraced suffering, she saw how little power it actually had over believers. Instead, power rests in the love of God and in a spiritual union with Christ.

All will be well
During the visions, Julian fretted over many aspects of sin, suffering, bliss, and trusting God. She asked Jesus how Christians can move beyond suffering and sin. Through the vision, he responded, "Sin is befitting, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

But Julian doubted him. She believed that there was no way that all could be well, since there was so much sin and suffering in the world. She continued to ask Jesus how all shall be well, and he said, "What is impossible to you is not impossible to me. I shall keep my word in all things and I shall make all things well." She still worried, but concluded that she was "taught that we must rejoice only in our blessed Savior Jesus and trust him for everything."

Julian’s revelations led her to a theology of the Trinity where the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, is like a mother. In the Trinity, Julian saw fatherhood, motherhood, and Lordship all in one God.

Julian considered a mother’s death in childbirth parallel to Jesus’ death on the cross through which we are all reborn. The birthing of the Christian community is through Christ who dies so we may have eternal life. Julian envisioned Jesus as a mother feeding the Christian community with the body and blood in the Eucharist, as a mother feeds a nursing child. Julian experienced the love of Christ as deeper than the unconditional love of a mother for her child, and his care for us like that of a mother who willingly suffers for the sake of her beloved child.

Julian writes of Jesus, "The blessed wounds of our Savior are open and rejoice to heal us; the sweet, gracious hands of our Mother are ready and carefully surround us; for in all of this he does the work of a kind nurse who has nothing to do but occupy herself with the salvation of her child. His task is to save us, and it is his glory to do so, and it is his wish that we know it; for he wants us to love him tenderly, and trust him humbly and strongly. And he showed this in these gracious words, ‘I hold you quite safely.’"

Julian summarized her experience of Jesus by writing, "And then I understood that in this life no one grows beyond childhood, in feebleness and inadequacy of body and mind, until the time when our gracious Mother has brought us up into our Father’s bliss. And then we shall really understand what he means when he says those sweet words, ‘All shall be well, and you shall see for yourself that all manner of things shall be well.’"

Knowledge of God and self
The simplicity of Julian’s writing is coupled with a complex theology and deep spiritual insight. She takes the believer on a journey into the vast, open, infinite expanse of the love of God. She suffered and contemplated suffering, only to find a source of well–being and peace deep within her soul where Christ dwelled. She concluded that there are three kinds of knowledge we need to embrace in this life: knowledge of God, knowledge of self and who we are through Jesus by nature and grace, and knowledge of our own sins and weaknesses. Once we have this knowledge, we begin to understand God, ourselves, and our place in this world and the next. In the arms of Julian’s Mother Jesus, we become confident that all manner of things will be well.

Judy Chiarelli holds the Master of Divinity degree from Catholic Theological Union. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Paul.