Revelations of Divine Love?

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Hi Everyone,
I have just started reading this book yesterday. Its called Revelations of Divine Love by St Julian of Norwich. What do you think of this book and how has it helped you in your life?

Thank you,
Catholicgirl201
 
catholicgirl201 said:
Hi Everyone,
I have just started reading this book yesterday. Its called Revelations of Divine Love by St Julian of Norwich. What do you think of this book and how has it helped you in your life?

Thank you,
Catholicgirl201
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I started reading this earlier in the year, then got side-tracked, so I must pick it up again. Julian was a remarkable woman by any standards, but for her time even more so. Her revelation are really quite revolutionary, and emphasise the mercy of Christ crucified. I like to think of her expression " All will be well, in the end, all will be exceedingly well" (near as I can recall it), and wonder if she was a universalist! But, though she pushed at the then boundries of spiritual thinking, she never crossed the line into unorthodoxy, and always stressed obedience to the bishops.

A heavy read in parts, Cg201, so I wish you well, and, as soon as I can find where I put my copy, I may well join you! 🙂
 
I too started it but got sidetracked. Couldn’t quite get into it but I find it hard to concentrate on any reading these days 😊

My mother figure is a world-leading authority on Julian of Norwich though, so I really must get through her edition of it sometime soon! 😃
 
Old thread revival.

Just curios who has read this book and what they think of it and Its contents? Thanks
 
philial said:
I started reading this earlier in the year, then got side-tracked, so I must pick it up again. Julian was a remarkable woman by any standards, but for her time even more so. Her revelation are really quite revolutionary, and emphasise the mercy of Christ crucified. I like to think of her expression " All will be well, in the end, all will be exceedingly well" (near as I can recall it), and wonder if she was a universalist! But, though she pushed at the then boundries of spiritual thinking, she never crossed the line into unorthodoxy, and always stressed obedience to the bishops.

A heavy read in parts, Cg201, so I wish you well, and, as soon as I can find where I put my copy, I may well join you! 🙂
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She is recognized by the Church as a visionary. She was “shewn” many things, because she sought God with a genuine burden for the fate of so many around her dying of the Black Plague. God reassured her of His justice and goodness, without being specific: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”. This powerful revelation/locution sufficed to satisfy her concerns, and the Church embraces and values it to this day.
 
I read it some time ago, but I’m not sure if I’ve still got it on my shelves or not.

I’m not much of a mystic, so her book didn’t have the same sort of edification I might have gotten from reading CS Lewis for example.

But one thing that does intrigue me is the revelation about the “hazel-nut”.
Code: 
He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught for little. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall for that God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.
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Personally I think the universe adds up to nothing, as is borne out by the “sum-zero energy universe” well known by physicists. Brief explanatory link refers -

livescience.com/33129-total-energy-universe-zero.html

I mean, if you were God, would you give human beings, with their never ending wars, violence, treachery, selfishness, sinfulness, rape, abortion, theft, social injustice and all the rest, a really solid universe? Or would you give them a stage prop adding up to nothing while you sorted out the sheep from the goats, with the really solid universe to be revealed to the sheep, with the goats sent elsewhere?

To me Mother Julian of Norwich was being shown this physical fact in allegorical form by her visionary Christ, in the form of a hazel-nut which was so small she wondered how it kept existing, only to be informed “it is all that is made”.

That has so far been my main interest in her writing, a solitary gem from the English language’s first female author.
 
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