In this way, Julian anticipates (by six centuries!) the best and most creative expressions of feminist Christian theology as has emerged in our time. A lesser known but equally lovely quote: “The fullness of joy is to behold God in all.” Julian is also celebrated for naming both God and Christ as “mother.” More than a cute theological ploy, she articulates a fully-formed spirituality of the motherhood of God, yet always within the parameters of an orthodox appreciation of the Christian faith. Today, Julian is best known for her optimism she is most-often quoted for saying “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” (which was Christ’s response to her when she wondered about why sin had to exist). It appears she wrote a short text not long after the events of May 1373, and a longer text, completed twenty years later, filled with poetic and vividly rendered reflection on the theological meaning of her showings, centered on the lavish nature of Divine love. Shortly after this singular mystical experience she recovered from her illness, and subsequently wrote about her experience in a book that evolved over the following two decades. When she did so, she realized that she saw real, flowing blood on the corpus this was the beginning a series of vivid, profound visions or “showings” - sixteen different revelations in which Christ, Mary, heaven, even hell and “the fiend” were shown to her. While on her supposed deathbed, he held a cross before her face and instructed her to gaze upon Christ for comfort. In May 1373 when Julian was “thirty and one-half years old,” she became sick enough that a priest was summoned to come and issue her last rites. Julian of Norwich Stained Glass, Norwich Cathedral. In her work (the first book written by a woman in English), Julian recounts an amazing series of visions she had while suffering from a life-threatening illness as she reflects on the meaning of her visions, she reveals a profound level of mystical wisdom and insight that, over six hundred years later, remains on the cutting edge of Christian theology. Virtually nothing is known about her aside from what she writes in her remarkable book, but even there she reveals little about herself, preferring instead to talk about her “courteous” God. Julian in Norwich, from which we get her pseudonym. In her case, Julian’s cell adjoined the church of St. At some point in her life she became an anchoress - a vowed solitary who lived a life devoted to prayer and meditation, confined to a cell adjoining a church. We know very few details about her life in fact, we do not know even know her real name. The Anchoress known as Julian of Norwich was born in late 1342, and may have lived well into the fifteenth century, dying around 1412.
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