Kelsi Vanada

Dear friends,

Dame Julian of Norwich, whose feast we celebrate today, was a medieval anchoress who lived in a cell attached to the Church of St. Julian. Her Revelations of Divine Love is the first known book written in English by a woman—about the visions, or “showings,” of Christ’s passion that she received in 1373 when she was gravely ill.

Julian wrote a short version of her book soon after the showings, and then a longer text, which she must have worked on over many years of her life. It can easily be found online (translated from Middle English). It does her a great disservice to sum up this deep and mystical work so briefly, but in her words: “I learned that Love was our Lord’s meaning.”

Julian’s cell is about the size of our Julian Room (so named after the 2024 pilgrimage cohort visited it in Norwich!). That has stuck with me. But even more than the small(ish) size of the room, I keep thinking about Julian’s cell as a meeting point between the church and the outside world: her cell was attached to the church, with an inward window facing the altar, but was also a place where she interacted with the community, who would come to speak with her and hear her counsel through an opening in the outer wall.

This room and Julian’s life in it make a good metaphor for the Christian life more broadly. We come to church to be fed, to receive the sustenance of the holy mysteries and the support of our church community, then turn outward in love to meet a world full of need. We’re deeply connected to both.

Lord God, in your compassion you granted to the Lady Julian many revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek you above all things, for in giving us yourself you give us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Peace,

—Kelsi