This extract from Revelations of Divine Love is chapter 53 from the fourteenth revelation. Here Julian discusses how God created mankind and the difference in the creation of the body and the soul. She explains how the soul was created out of God himself – in the image of God – which is why there’s… Continue reading Julian of Norwich: Nothing between God and the soul
This extract from Revelations of Divine Love is chapter 49 from the fourteenth revelation. Here Julian discusses the impossibility of God ever being angry and how the soul can be united with God by finding peace within itself. “It was astonishing to me and I considered it carefully in later years that during these revelations… Continue reading Julian of Norwich: God is never angry
This extract from Revelations of Divine Love is chapters 41 and 42 from the fourteenth revelation. Here Julian discusses the difficulties and importance of prayer. She shows that prayer comes from our divine nature in union with God and that God is the essence of everything. From chapter 41: God is the foundation of our… Continue reading Julian of Norwich: On the importance of prayer
This extract from Revelations of Divine Love is chapter 32 from the thirteenth revelation. Here Julian discusses the problem of evil and carefully skirts around the teachings of the church. She explains the importance of faith and offers a reminder that we can’t know how God achieves his plan. What seems impossible to us, isn’t… Continue reading Julian of Norwich: The problem of evil
This extract from Revelations of Divine Love is chapter 27 from the thirteenth revelation. Here Julian discusses the idea that sin is necessary and that the pain it causes helps us to come closer to God. She doesn’t explain here what sin is, only that it’s okay because Jesus suffered for us (which as a… Continue reading Julian of Norwich: All shall be well
This extract from Revelations of Divine Love is chapter 11 from the third revelation. Here Julian discusses how God acts within the creation and that nothing happens by accident because it’s all his doing. God does everything so it’s all good. She sidesteps the question of sin at this point, but comes back to it… Continue reading Julian of Norwich: How can anything be amiss?
This extract from Revelations of Divine Love is chapter 5 from the first revelation. Here Julian discusses the nature of the creation and marvels at how small it is when seen within the eternity of God’s existence. She goes on to express the impossibility of finding peace within something so small and limited. “At the… Continue reading Julian of Norwich: Creation as tiny as a hazelnut
Julian of Norwich was a mystic and anchoress of the 14th century and wrote Revelations of Divine Love, the first book to be written in English by a woman. Not much is known about her life, but she was born in about 1342 and may have been from a wealthy family that lived in Norwich.… Continue reading Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love
Last time we looked at the language of deification in the Unitive State. Here we finish the extracts from Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism with the second style of language used by mystics to describe the experience of union, that of spiritual marriage, and explore the source of the mystic’s joy: “At this point we begin to… Continue reading The Mystic Way 15: Spiritual Marriage and Joy
Last time we looked at the characteristics of the Unitive Life. Here we continue the extracts from Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism to explore the first style of language used by mystics to describe the experience of union, that of deification: “We have said that the mystic of the impersonal type, the seeker of a Transcendent Absolute,… Continue reading The Mystic Way 14: Deification in Union
Last time we looked at ego death in the dark night of the soul. Here we continue the extracts from Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism to explore the true goal of the Mystic Way: Union. This isn’t the same as the earlier illumination stage, but the final stage where the mystic is one with the Absolute. So… Continue reading The Mystic Way 13: The Unitive Life
Last time we looked at some of the forms of the Dark Night of the Soul. Here we continue the extracts from Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism to explore the final and most challenging step of the dark night, that of the death of the self: “The various torments and desolations of the Dark Night constitute this… Continue reading The Mystic Way 12: Ego Death in the Dark Night
Jessica Davidson 