SOURCE: "The Work of Grace" in Wisdom's Daughter: The Theology of Julian of Norwich, Crossroad, 1991, pp. 148-69.

Although the Spirit of God is active with the whole trinity in the works of nature and mercy already described, the particular work attributed to the Spirit by Julian is eschatological fulfillment, which she calls the work of grace:

Grace works with mercy, and especially in two properties, … which working belongs to the third person, the Holy Spirit. He works, rewarding and giving. Rewarding is a gift of trust which the Lord makes to those who have labored; and giving is a courteous act which he does freely, by grace, fulfilling and surpassing all that creatures deserve (58:294).

The ultimate gift and reward of the Spirit is heaven, that state of union with God which the blessed will enjoy for all eternity. Julian's strong emphasis upon heaven is proof of her indebtedness to the monastic tradition, where the longing for heaven was the fundamental atmosphere within which monastic culture flourished, an atmosphere that was predominantly eschatological and transcendent.¹ The message of Julian's revelations which urged her to live within the divine perspective with respect to sin and salvation is consistent with such an eschatological tradition.

Future Eschatology: The Bliss of Heaven

In the sixth revelation, Julian's understanding is "lifted up into heaven" where she sees God as the lord of a great feast, "gladdening and consoling" all his friends.² As she contemplates this image, she is led to understand that anyone "who has voluntarily served God in any degree on earth" will enjoy "three degrees of bliss" in heaven. The person will experience "honor and thanks from our Lord God," a thanks "so exalted and so honorable" that it is indescribable joy. Furthermore, God will make this thanks public so that "all the blessed in heaven will see the honor of the thanks," increasing the joy and honor experienced by the saved person. Finally, this joy and honor "will last forevermore."³ Although Julian makes the point that joy will be especially great for those who "voluntarily and freely offer their youth to God," all three degrees of bliss belong to all the saved, whether their service lasted a lifetime or a day (14:203-4).⁴

Later, in the ninth revelation, Julian's understanding is lifted up into heaven again, where she sees "three heavens" reflecting the three persons of the trinity, all in relation to the humanity of Christ. The first heaven reveals the pleasure the Father takes in rewarding the Son for "all the deeds that Jesus has done for our salvation" (22:216). The second heaven is the bliss the Son experiences through the honor he receives from the Father by being awarded the gift of all the saved. The third heaven is the "endless delight" the Holy Spirit takes in the work of salvation (23:218).

The three degrees of bliss experienced by the blessed in heaven correspond to the three heavens of the trinity. Heaven is essentially a sharing in the pleasure and joy of the Father, thehonor and bliss of the Son, and the endless delight of the Holy Spirit over the great deed of salvation which has enabled the human race, made in God's image, to become the bliss, the reward, the honor, and the crown of God. Heaven is thus the final fulfillment of the work of the incarnation, through which temporal and earthly reality has been raised up into the mystery of God.

There is a parallel between God's joy, honor, and endless delight and the qualities of might, wisdom, and love by which Julian usually describes the trinity. The Father's joy represents the triumph of God's might, the Son's honor the vindication of God's wisdom, and the Spirit's endless delight the eternity of the love which has guided all to fulfillment. When the blessed in heaven share in the joy, honor, and delight of the trinity over their salvation, they are, in effect, sharing, insofar as it is possible for creatures, in the triumphant might, wisdom, and love of God. They are sharing this through the perfection of those qualities in themselves by which they have always imaged God, the qualities of human might, wisdom, and love, which were blemished by sin but restored and increased by Christ and fulfilled by the Holy Spirit. Heaven means the fulfillment of God's desire "to have the blessed creatures who will be in heaven with him without end like himself in all things" (77:331).

The end of the parable of the lord and the servant crystallizes Julian's understanding of the bliss of heaven. There the servant is no longer dressed in an old, tight-fitting, threadbare, and short tunic, representing the blemished image of God, but in clothing "made lovely by our savior, new, white and bright and forever clean," fairer, even, than the clothing on the lord. Restored human nature, symbolized by Christ's clothing, is "now of a fair and seemly mixture," so marvellous that it is beyond description (51:278).⁵ The fact that it is fairer than the original clothing of the lord seems to imply that the works of mercy and grace have added something to God's glory, not to the essence of God, but to the glory given to God through God's works in time.

It is customary to think of heaven as a state of joy for human beings. What is unique about Julian's presentation is her stress on the joy which God experiences there, when all the saved are given to Christ as his reward for suffering on their behalf. The saved are given to Christ as his crown, and the entire trinity rejoices in this: "For it was revealed that we are his crown, which crown is the Father's joy, the Son's honor, the Holy Spirit's delight, and endless marvellous bliss to all who are in heaven" (51:278).⁶ Christ takes up his permanent residence in the city prepared for him by the Father, the souls of all the faithful which together comprise the heavenly kingdom, where there is eternal peace, joy, and love.⁷ There all the saved enter into the inner life of the trinity, sharing in the very attributes of God.

Heaven means that God's promise, "all will be well," will be fulfilled and understood by all the blessed. Julian is told that this promise includes the fact that "you will see yourself that every kind of thing will be well." She understood this phrase to indicate the "union of all who will be saved in the blessed trinity" (31:229).' The nature of this union is more precisely described in the following passage:

We shall all come into our Lord, knowing ourselves clearly and wholly possessing God, and we shall all be endlessly hidden in God, truly seeing. and wholly feeling, and hearing him spiritually and delectably smelling him and sweetly tasting him. And there we shall see God face to face, familiarly and wholly. The creature which is made will see and endlessly contemplate God who is the maker (43:255).⁹

In heaven the blessed will finally see with God's wisdom and will with God's love. Full union with the mind and will of God and the true knowledge of self which accompanies it will be finally achieved.

Jesus promises Julian that heaven also means the cessation of all suffering:

Suddenly you will be taken out of all your pain, all your sickness, all your unrest and all your woe. And you will come up above, and you will have me for your reward, and you will be filled full of joy and bliss, and you will never again have any kind of pain, any kind of sickness, any kind of displeasure, no lack of will, but always joy and bliss without end (64:306).¹⁰

But the labor spent on earth dealing with the suffering caused by sin will endure eternally, transformed into honor:

As we are punished here with sorrow and penance … we shall be rewarded in heaven by the courteous love of our almighty God, who does not wish anyone who comes there to lose his labors in any degree.… The reward which we shall receive will not be small, but it will be great, glorious and honorable. And so all shame will be tumed into honor and joy (39:245).

Julian looks forward to having her most perplexing problems about sin and salvation solved in heaven: "when the judgment is given, and we are all brought up above, we shall then clearly see in God the mysteries which are now hidden from us" (85:341). However, this will cause a bliss "so deep and so high" that, "out of wonder and marvelling" the blessed will be filled with a reverent fear of God, so far surpassing what they have experienced before, "that the pillars of heaven will tremble and quake" (75:327)." This is the proper attitude of the creature before God, even in heaven. Although the creature experiences union with the wisdom and love of God, the essential difference between creature and Creator is not dissolved. Indeed, the awareness of this difference, with the reverent fear that accompanies it, increases in heaven with greater knowledge of God:

For this reverent fear is the fairer courtesy which is in heaven before God's face; and by as much as he will be known and loved, surpassing how he now is, by so much will he be feared, surpassing how he now is. Therefore it must necessarily be that all heaven, all earth will tremble and quake (75:327-28).

God will remain for all eternity the totally other, holy, Incomprehensible Mystery before whom creatures can only bow in adoration.

Realized Eschatology: Anticipation of Heaven

In the monastic tradition, heaven was not solely a future reality to be awaited, but one experienced partially in the present through the life of grace, which was greatly aided by the practice of contemplative prayer. Julian follows this tradition, and is particularly interested in showing how this present anticipation of heaven, this realized eschatology, can provide comfort and solace in the midst of earthly suffering.

While Julian emphasizes particular virtues of the Christian life closely associated with God's work of mercy (as outlined in the last chapter), she also treats those gifts of the Spirit through which all who will be saved receive a foretaste on earth of the sharing in the life of God which they will enjoy in heaven. Once again, the notion of the imago Dei dominates Julian's study of growth in the life of grace. The gifts she describes correspond to the attributes of GQd discussed in Chapter 4: God's immutability finds a parallel in the gift of peace, God's joy in the gift of joy, and God's love in the further increase of love, accompanied by the reverent fear which reflects God's incomprehensibility.

The surest entrance into the enjoyment of these gifts is through contemplative prayer, wherein one is afforded a sight of God suited to one's present need and condition:

And so we shall by his sweet grace in our own meek continual prayer come into [God] now in this life by many secret touchings of sweet spiritual sights and feelings, measured out to us as our simplicity may bear it. And this is done and will be done by the grace of the Holy Spirit, until the day that we die, still longing for love.… But when [God] of his special grace wishes to show himself here, he gives the creature more than its own strength, and measures the revelation according to his own will, and it isprofitable for that time (43:255).

The effect of this sight is to fill the soul with peace, joy, and love.

The Gift of Peace and Rest

For Julian, "God is true rest," and desires "that we should rest in him" (5:184). Therefore God bestows the gift of peace on the willing soul:

Our good Lord the Holy Spirit, who is endless life dwelling in our soul … produces in the soul a peace, and brings it to ease through grace, and makes it obedient and reconciles it to God. And this is … the way on which our good Lord constantly leads us, so long as we are in this changeable life (48:261-62).

Julian often describes peace as the absence of the wrath or "contrariness" caused by sin.¹² When filled with God's peace, "we find no contrariness in any kind of hindrance," not even in the things that at other times greatly afflict us (49:265).

The gift of peace and rest in God is a foretaste of the eternity of heaven, a sharing in the immutability of God, for God "will make us as unchangeable as he is when we are there" (49:265). When one contemplates God and God's works under the influence of this gift, one realizes that "all [God's] judgments are easy and sweet," and learns to prefer them to the "blind judgments" of human beings (11:198).¹³ One glimpses the "blessed harmony" that always exists between God and God's works, seeing that God "is always fully pleased with himself and with all his works" (35:237). One becomes, in short, as one shall be in heaven: "wholly contented with God and with all his works and with all his judgments, and loving and content with ourselves and with our fellow Christians and with everything which God loves" (49:265).

Resting in the peace of God is an experience of the assurance of salvation, and Julian describes her personal realization of this:

I was filled full of everlasting surety, powerfully secured without any painful fear. This sensation was so welcome and so spiritual that I was wholly at peace, at ease and at rest, so that there was nothing upon earth which could have afflicted me.… And then presently God gave me again comfort and rest for my soul, delight and security so blessedly and so powerfully that there was no fear, no sorrow, no pain, physical or spiritual, that one could suffer which might have disturbed me (15:204-5).

However, this consoling experience was a fleeting one for Julian, alternating with the experience of desolation. She realizedthat peace is the unearned, free gift of the Spirit, yet she also learned that God wants human beings to dispose themselves to receive and retain it:

For it is God's will that we do all in our power to preserve our consolation, for bliss lasts forevermore, and pain is passing, and will be reduced to nothing for those who will be saved. Therefore it is not God's will that when we feel pain we should pursue it in sorrow and mourning for it, but that suddenly we should pass it over, and preserve ourselves in the endless delight which is God (15:205).

The Gift of Joy

In the first revelation, while Julian is contemplating the suffering Christ, she tells us of her sudden experience of joy; "Suddenly the trinity filled my heart full of the greatest joy, and I understood that it will be so in heaven without end to all who will come there" (4:181). In heaven the blessed share in "the delight which the blessed trinity has in the cruel passion of Christ, once his sorrowful death was accomplished." But it is God's will that this, too, be experienced on earth: "[God] wishes that joy and delight to be our solace and happiness, as it is [God's], until we come to glory in heaven" (1:176). One ought to seek for this gift from God, for God is eager to give it (10:196). Julian records her own prayer:

Ah, Jesus, let us pay heed to this bliss over our salvation which is in the blessed trinity, and let us desire to have as much spiritual delight by his grace.… Let our delight in our salvation be like the joy which Christ has in our salvation, as much as that may be whilst we are here (23:219).

It is especially through contemplation that the soul enters into this joy of God. One first learns to understand God's joy over human salvation:

Our courteous Lord shows himself to the soul, happily and with the gladdest countenance, welcoming it as a friend.… Our soul is honorably received in joy, as it will be when it comes into heaven, as often as it comes by the operation of grace of the Holy Spirit and the power of Christ's passion (40:246).¹⁴

Then the contemplative begins to share in God's joy, and to recognize it as the gift beyond all others that God wants human beings to possess:

What can make us to rejoice more in God than to see in him that in us, of all his greatest works, God has joy?.… [God] wants our hearts to be powerfully lifted above the depths of the earth and all empty sorrows, and to rejoice in him (68:314).¹⁵

We are invited, in other words, to rejoice in God's joy in us. We can love ourselves, find joy in ourselves, because God loves and rejoices in us. This joy can be ours even in the midst of pain and suffering. While throughout our lives we always have "matter for mourning, because our sin is the cause of Christ's pains," even more do we have "constantly matter for joy, because endless love made [Christ] suffer" (52:280; my emphasis). Once again we are reminded of the "much more" of Romans 5.¹⁶

Contemplative prayer is actually "a right understanding of that fulness of joy which is to come, with true longing and trust" (42:252). As such, it initiates in the contemplative a foretaste of the bliss of heaven, which is "to possess God in the clarity of endless light, truly seeing him, sweetly feeling him, peacefully possessing him in the fulness of joy" (72:320). In the union thus created, "God rejoices in the creature and the creature in God, endlessly marvelling" (44:256).

The joy received as gift from the Spirit overflows into thanksgiving and praise:

Thanksgiving is a true inward acknowledgment, we applying ourselves with great reverence and loving fear and with all our powers to the work that our Lord moved us to, rejoicing and giving thanks inwardly. And sometimes the soul is so full of this that it breaks out in words and says: Good Lord, great thanks, blessed may you be (41:250).¹⁷

This is what the saved experience in the bliss of heaven, "praising and thanking God," saying "with one voice: Lord, blessed may you be." '" In spite of human foolishness and blindness, this is how God constantly regards humanity, rejoicing in the work of creation which praises God. One can, even now, please God best "by wisely and truly believing it, and rejoicing with him and in him" (85:341).

The Perfection of Love

Julian describes every aspect of the Christian life in terms of its grounding in love. There is a permanence about humanity's love for God, even when one is separated from God through sin, because human creation is always held united to God in the substance of the soul; but that love is also increased and perfected through sensual life in time. Julian uses three terms to describe this love: Uncreated Charity, created charity, and given charity. God is Uncreated Charity, the source of the soul's love for God, in distinction to created charity which is the human soul in God, that is, the natural love by which the human always longs for God, theineradicable image of God seated in the human will. But given charity is a gift of the Spirit over and above created charity; it perfects and increases the soul's natural love and desire for God. It is "a gift of grace in deeds, in which we love God for himself, and ourselves in God, and all that God loves for God"(84:341).¹⁹ It is the gradual bringing of the whole self, including one's sensuality, into the union with God's will which has been eternally present in one's substance.

It is especially through prayer that the Spirit brings to perfection the union of wills that exists between God and the creature. Eventually, the human will is so much in tune with God's that one can pray for what one desires, confident that it is also pleasing to God: "we may with reverence ask from our lover all that we will, for our natural will is to have God, and God's good will is to have us" (6:186). Consequently, one can have a certain confidence that God will do what one desires. As Christ told Julian:

How could it now be that you would pray to me for anything pleasing to me which I would not very gladly grant to you? For my delight is in your holiness and in your endless joy and bliss in me (24:221).

Prayer is, then, in essence, "a true and gracious, enduring will of the soul, united and joined to our Lord's will by the sweet, secret operation of the Holy Spirit." Through it, God gradually "makes us like to himself in condition as we are in nature" (41:249). This is a foretaste of the union with God's will in love that one will enjoy in heaven. The Christian is made like the servant of the parable, "loving to do his lord's will" (51:267). Like the servant, the Christian realizes deep within the self "a foundation of love, the love which he had for the lord, which was equal to the love which the lord had for him" (51:273). And this love is the presence of the Spirit, who is "Uncreated Charity," bringing into fulfillment the potential of the human to image the love of God.

We have already discussed the emphasis Julian places upon love for others in her theology. Hers is no "private mysticism." Growth into union with the will of God finds expression in love for others. In this union Christians experience "a great and marvellous knowledge of love in God without end," which "makes us to love everything which [God] loves for love of him, and to be well satisfied with him and with all his works" (61:300). This love is what prompted Julian to insist so strongly that the privileges granted her in prayer were meant for all her fellow Christians: "For of all things, contemplating and loving the creator makes the soul to seem less in its own sight, and fills it full with reverent fear and true meekness, and with much love for its fellow Christians" (6:187).

Love and Reverent Fear

The gradual perfection of love drives out fear, especially the fear destructive of trust in God which Julian calls despair or "doubtfulfear."²⁰ In the seventh revelation, Julian experienced a security in God's love which was completely "without any painful fear" (15:204). When a person opens self to God in love to receive God's "sweet gracious teaching," and knows the comforting presence of God, doubtful fear disappears, and one learns to resist any movement which encourage it (79:334).

The perfection of love in human nature has the same qualities as God's love for humanity, namely courtesy and homeliness.²¹ The absence of doubtful fear and the assurance of salvation, which come as the gifts of prayer, allow one to enter into a certain intimacy with God: "For our courteous Lord wants us to be as [homely] with him as heart may think or soul may desire." Yet this homeliness does not wipe out courtesy: "let us beware that we do not accept this [homeliness] so carelessly as to forsake courtesy. For our Lord himself is supreme [homeliness], and he is as courteous as he is [homely]" (77:331). True love for God never degenerates into presumptive familiarity, but the courtesy that the creature owes the majesty of God is expressed in an attitude of awe which Julian calls "reverent fear."

Though all other forms of fear are driven out by love, reverent fear is increased. It is gentle, like God's attitude of courtesy, but it honors the reality of who God is in all God's transcendent, mysterious othemess. It always accompanies the perfection of love:

Love and fear are brothers, and they are rooted in us by the goodness of our Creator, and they will never be taken from us without end. It is our nature to love, and we are given grace to love; and it is our nature to fear, and we are given grace to fear.… And yet this reverent fear and love are not the same, but they are different in kind and in effect, and neither of them may be obtained without the other (74:324-25).²²

Love and reverent fear are human responses to different attributes in God:

It is proper to God's lordship and his fatherhood to be feared, as it is proper to his goodness to be loved; and it is proper to us who are his servants and his children to fear him, for his lordship and fatherhood, as it is proper to us to love him for his goodness (74:325).

Whoever loves God also fears God, and the experience of this on earth is a foreshadowing of the life of heaven:

The natural attribute of fear which we have in this life by the grace-giving operation of the Holy Spirit will be the same in heaven before God, gentle, courteous, most sweet; and thus in love we shall be [homely] and close to God, and in fear we shall begentle and courteous to God, and both the same, in the same way (74:325).²³

Julian's notion that reverent fear increases with the perfection of love allows her to describe mystical union with God in a way that forbids any identification between the soul and God. The sense of the essential difference between creature and Creator is enhanced, not diminished, by the perfection of love.

The Saints in Heaven

Julian's description of heaven includes the community of the saints, that "blessed company" completely united in mind and will with God, who rejoice in the salvation of each other as much as they do in their own salvation. They also long, with Christ's love-longing, for the coming to bliss of those still on their earthly sojourn. Therefore Christians receive help from them, and "holy, endless friendship" (6:185).

Julian lived in an age well aware of the companionship of love and concern provided by the blessed in heaven to the church on earth. The intercession of the saints, the veneration of relics, and pilgrimage to sacred shrines were hallmarks of the late Middle Ages.²⁴ However, undoubtedly aware of the extremes to which such devotions could go, Julian exhibits a cautious attitude towards them.²⁵ It was much more important for her to enter into companionship with God in prayer than to pray to many saints. In speaking of the purpose of her first revelation, Julian makes the following comment:

This revelation was given to my understanding to teach our souls wisely to adhere to the goodness of God; and in that same time our habits of prayer were brought to my mind, how in our ignorance of love we are accustomed to employ many inter-mediaries. Then I saw truly that it is more honor to God and more true delight if we faithfully pray to him for his goodness, and adhere to this by grace, with true understanding and steadfast belief, than if we employed all the intermediaries of which a heart may think. For if we employ all these intermediaries, this is too little and it is not complete honor to God; but his goodness is full and complete, and in it is nothing lacking (6:184-85).

Julian intimates that, for many in her day, devotion to the saints had replaced prayer to God, chiefly because God's goodness and love were poorly understood. Through the publication of her revelations, which emphasize God's love so strongly, she hopes to help rectify this.

There is a place for devotion to the saints: "the intermediaries which the goodness of God has ordained to help us are very lovelyand many," and it pleases God "that we seek him and honor him through intermediaries," as long as we understand that God is "the goodness of everything." The proper attitude towards the saints is the same that holds for everything else in Julian's understanding of reality. One cannot find rest in anything created, but only in God. Though it may be good and beneficial on occasion to pray to the saints, "the highest form of prayer is to the goodness of God, which comes down to us to our humblest needs." Furthermore, one must always remember that "the chief and principal intermediary is the blessed nature which [Christ] took of the virgin" (6:185). It is through the mediation of Jesus, especially the suffering Jesus, that one is put in touch with the inner life of the trinity.

Julian does consider the saints, however, as concrete evidence for the triumph of God's mercy and grace over sin. With the exception of Mary, the only saints she mentions are those whose sinfulness is well documented, such as David, Mary Magdalen, Peter and Paul, Thomas of India, and John of Beverly (38:242-43).²⁶ Since the saints once shared human weakness yet now enjoy honor in heaven, sinners can take courage that the same honor will come to them.

Mary: Prototype of the Perfect Christian

Mary is the only saint whom Julian "saw" in her revelations; she gained an inward understanding of "the virtues of her blessed soul, her truth, her wisdom, her love" through which Julian was taught to know herself and reverently to fear God (25:222). Mary functions in Julian's theology as a prototype for human nature. She is the true image of God, one whose own truth [or might], wisdom, and love luminously reflect the trinity.

Julian saw Mary on three occasions: "as she conceived, … as she had been under the cross, and … as she is now, in delight, honor and joy" (25:223). The first sight emphasizes Mary as the perfect example of human nature as created by God, the second reveals the way she shared in Christ's work of mercy, suffering compassionately with him and for him, and the third presents Mary as the human being perfected by grace, sharing in the three "heavens" of the trinity. All three works of God, nature, mercy, and grace, are seen in their effects upon Mary, the perfect Christian.

At the time of the Incarnation, Mary's attitude towards God's messenger reveals those virtues basic to the creature who realizes the Creator's greatness:

I saw her … [as] a simple, humble maiden, young in years, grown a little taller than a child, of the stature which she had when she conceived. Also God showed me part of the wisdom and the truth of her soul, and in this I understood the reverent contemplation with which she beheld her God, who is her creator, marvelling with great reverence that he was willing to be born of her who was a simple creature created by him. And this wisdom and truth, this knowledge of her creator's greatness and of her own created littleness, made her say very meekly to Gabriel: Behold me here, God's handmaiden (4:182).²⁷

Mary is thus the perfection of creaturehood, the true image of God, "greater, more worthy, and more fulfilled, than everything else which God has created," except for the humanity of Christ (4: 182).

When Julian saw Mary at the time of Christ's passion, she was given to understand the nature of her compassion for Christ:

Christ and she were so united in love that the greatness of her love was the cause of the greatness of her pain. For in this I saw a substance of natural love, which is developed by grace, which his creatures have for him, and this natural love was most perfectly and surpassingly revealed in his sweet mother; for as much as she loved him more than all others, her pain surpassed that of all others. For always, the higher, the stronger, the sweeter that love is, the more sorrow it is to the lover to see the body which he loved in pain (18:210).

Mary represents for Julian the perfection of the quality of compassion which she herself had prayed to attain: the grace of being able to "have the mind of Christ" in order to suffer with him. She represents the realism of Julian's approach to suffering. Though suffering is temporary, and will be cause for joy in heaven, it is nevertheless real and painful. It becomes even more painful, not less so, when one grows in love of Christ, because then one sorrows over the sufferings of Christ, whom one loves.

Finally, Julian saw Mary's glorification in heaven:

Just as before I had seen her small and simple, now [Christ] showed her high and noble and glorious and more pleasing to him than all creatures. And so he wishes it to be known that all who take delight in him should take delight in her, and in the delight that he has in her and she in him (25:222-23).

Julian makes an explicit link between Mary in glory and Mary at the foot of the cross. She sees the exalted Mary immediately after the countenance of the Crucified has turned to joy, and he has revealed to her the "three heavens" by which the trinity rejoice over Christ's sufferings, and the joy he takes in his side opened up for love. Then he "looked down on his right, and brought to … mind where our Lady stood at the time of his passion" (25:221). Julian does not see the sorrowing mother, but Maryglorious in heaven. Her glory, however, is intimately connected to the suffering she endured in union with the suffering and death of Christ. So it shall be for all the saved.

Julian understood her vision of Mary in glory as a revelation not only of Mary, but of the love God has for her:

Because of the wonderful, exalted and singular love that he has for this sweet maiden, his blessed mother, our Lady St. Mary, he reveals her bliss and joy through the sense of these sweet words, as if he said, do you wish to see how I love her, so that you could rejoice with me in the love which I have in her and she has in me? (25:222).

Mary is therefore the model for the unity of love that exists between creature and God in heaven.

Furthermore, through the love Christ showed towards Mary, Julian understood an even deeper message of love for all who will be saved:

And for greater understanding of these sweet words our good Lord speaks in love to all [humankind] who will be saved, addressing them all as one person, as if he said, do you wish to see in her how you are loved? It is for love of you that I have made her so exalted, so noble, so honorable; and this delights me. And I wish it to delight you (25:222).

Christ's love for all the saved motivated him to enter into Mary's womb, so that he might become "our mother in all things" (60:297). Julian therefore understands the motherhood of Mary towards humanity in terms of the motherhood of Christ:

So our Lady is our mother, in whom we are all enclosed and born of her in Christ, for she who is mother of our savior is mother of all who are saved in our savior; and our savior is our true Mother, in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come (57:292).

Mary is the mother of the whole Christ, "perfect humanity," which includes all the saved united to Christ in one renewed human nature (57:292).

Like all those on the path to salvation, Mary enjoyed in her earthly life the intimations of the life of heaven which are the fruits of the Spirit's work. These gifts come most easily and abundantly through prayer, and Mary is the model of the true contemplative:

Our good Lord showed our Lady St. Mary … to signify theexalted wisdom and truth which were hers as she contemplated her creator. This wisdom and truth showed her in contemplation how great, how exalted, how mighty and how good was her God. The greatness and nobility of her contemplation of God filled her full of reverent fear; and with this she saw herself so small and so humble, so simple and so poor in comparison with her God that this reverent fear filled her with humility. And founded on this, she was filled with grace and with every kind of virtue, and she surpasses all creatures (7:187).²⁸

Except for Christ himself, there is no better example of the fully graced image of God than Mary.

The Possibility of Universal Salvation

Throughout her revelations, Julian reminds us that she is speaking only of those destined for salvation because "God showed me no one else" (9:192). Yet this also causes her some perplexity concerning damnation, about which nothing was revealed. In fact, her revelations seem to come close to preaching apocatastasis, or universal salvation, and Julian sees this as being in conflict with official Church teaching.²⁹ Though no clear revelation about eternal damnation is ever given to her, Julian eventually comes to some conclusions about it.

From the beginning to the end of her revelations, Julian had "two kinds of contemplation," two points of view, from which to consider what was revealed to her. The one supplied by her revelations was "endless continuing love, with certainty of protection and blessed salvation," the notion summed up so often in the phrase "all will be well," and which certainly tended towards apocatastasis. The other was "the common teaching of Holy Church" in which, until the time of her revelations, Julian "had been instructed and grounded" and which she had "practiced and understood" (46:258). Julian insists that the new insight supplied by her revelations did not replace the teaching of the church:

And the contemplation of this [church teaching] did not leave me, for by the revelation I was not moved or led away from it in any way at all; but I was taught in the revelation to love it and rejoice in it, so that I might with the help of our Lord and his grace increase and rise to more heavenly knowledge and a higher loving (44:258-59).

Since both her revelations and church teaching come from God, they cannot contradict one another, but only contextualize and deepen each other.

Nonetheless, church teaching, as Julian understands it, seems incompatible with the tendency towards apocatastasis she sees inher revelations:

And one article of our faith is that many creatures will be damned, such as the angels who fell out of heaven because of pride, who now are devils, and many … upon earth who die out of the faith of Holy Church, that is to say those who are pagans and many who have received baptism and who live unchristian lives and so die out of God's love. All these will be eternally condemned to hell, as Holy Church teaches me to believe (32:233).³⁰

Julian believes that this teaching is "founded on God's word" which "will be preserved in all things." Indeed, Christ explicitly promises Julian, "I shall preserve my word in everything," but in the same breath also promises, "I shall make everything well." Julian understands this dual promise to mean that she must believe firmly in both church teaching and the more universally salvific promise of her revelations (32:233), and at first she views this as an irreconcilable contradiction. If church teaching were indeed true, it seems to her "impossible that every kind of thing should be well." The only answer she receives to her perplexity is Christ's statement that "what is impossible to you is not impossible to me" (32:233).³¹

But Julian's speculative mind will not let her rest with this, and she seeks greater clarity. She desires "some sight of hell and of purgatory," not because she wants confirmation of church teaching, but so that she might better understand it. This sight is never granted to her (33:234). Instead, she is reminded of God's attitude towards the devil which had already been revealed in the fifth revelation:

In God there can be no anger … and it is with power and justice, to the profit of all who will be saved, that [God] opposes the damned, who in malice and malignity work to frustrate and oppose God's will. Also I saw our Lord scorn [the devil's] malice and despise him as nothing.… For in this God revealed that the devil is damned.… I saw that on Judgment Day he will be generally scorned by all who will be saved, of whose salvation he has had great envy. For then he will see that all the woe and tribulation which he has caused them will be changed into the increase of their eternal joy. And all the pain and the sorrow that he wanted to bring them into will go forever with him to hell (13:201-2).

God's making all well could conceivably include the ultimate destruction of the devil along with all the evils he attempted to inflict upon the human race. Julian speculates that the same might be true of people who become enslaved to Satan:

I understand that every creature who is of the devil'scondition in this life and so dies is no more mentioned before God and all his saints than is the devil, notwithstanding that they belong to the human race, whether they have been baptized or not (33:234).³²

It is not clear what Julian means here. Perhaps God and the saints simply overlook the damned, not taking them seriously since they pose no threat to them. She could, however, be implying that the damned will fall into oblivion, into nothingness, rather than suffer some eternal torment.³³ She certainly receives no pictures of eternal hell-fire. Elsewhere, she equates the pain of hell with despair (17:209). Her revelations remain silent on the subject: "the revelation was shown to reveal goodness, and little mention was made in it of evil" (33:234).

While Julian seems able to entertain the possibility of damnation for certain persons who are truly evil, she questions its application towards the multitudes which seem to be condemned by church teaching. She singles out the Jews for special mention:

But I saw nothing so exactly specified concerning the Jews who put [Christ] to death; and nonetheless I knew in my faith that they were eternally accursed and condemned, except those who were converted by grace (33:234).

"All will be well" continues to seem irreconcilable with the church's judgment on this issue.

Another possible way out of the contradiction between her revelations and church teaching is through the subordination of the particular to the general. At one point Julian asks whether someone she loves will be saved, and she is given no reply. Instead, she is counseled to accept "generally" the lessons she learns about salvation, "for it is more honor to God to contemplate him in all things than in any one special thing" (35:236). If she can learn to act in accordance with this, Julian thinks, "I should not be glad because of any special thing or be greatly distressed by anything at all, for all will be well; for the fulness of joy is to contemplate God in everything" (35:237). By viewing the whole picture, in which God has ordained everything "for the best" and always leads it to that end, one might conceivably be able to include the eternal damnation of particular persons as part of that process.

However, Julian is also taught that the promise "all will be well" specifically includes the particular: "every kind of thing." God takes heed not only of "the noble and great" but also of the "little and small," and God wants us to know "that the smallest thing will not be forgotten" (32:231-32). Contemplating God's activity on behalf of humanity "in general" does not excludeparticular individuals (36:240), as is evident in the following passage reminiscent of the gospel parable of the lost sheep:34

[Christ] dwells here in us, and rules us, and cares for us in this life, and brings us to his bliss. And so he will do as long as any soul is on earth who will come to heaven; and so much so that if there were no such soul on earth except one, he would be with it, all alone, until he had brought it up into his bliss (80:335-36).

Julian's revelations strongly suggest that the "all" that will be well in God's promise includes "every particular" human being, although this is never stated absolutely.

In further support of this conclusion, the stress throughout Julian's revelations on the goodness of creation, situated within the eternal goodness and power of God, tends towards the absolute:

I saw most truly that [God] never changed his purpose in any kind of thing, nor ever will eternally. For there was nothing unknown to him in his just ordinance before time began, and therefore all things were set in order, before anything was made, as it would endure eternally. And no kind of thing will fail in that respect, for he has made everything totally good (1:198-99; emphasis mine).

This is why sin is ultimately powerless against God's eternal might, wisdom, and goodness.³⁵

Julian's revelations lead to the conclusion that it is at least much more probable that everyone will be saved than that some will be damned. Their emphasis upon trust in salvation is so strong, and the absence of anything to the contrary so glaring, that this is likely the conclusion that Julian herself reached, though she does not say so explicitly.

This conclusion is further supported by two other insights which Julian received. First, the full reality of God and God's purposes are finally beyond human understanding in this world, even beyond the teachings of the church, though those are truly God's word. Julian talks about this insight by contrasting God's viewpoint with that of the church in terms of two "portions," two mysteries, and two judgments.

God's will for humanity is contained in two portions, one open and revealed, the other hidden. The open portion contains everything related to "our savior and our salvation." It includes "all who are of good will," that is, all the just who live the sacramental life, and follow the teachings of the church and the inner inspirations of the Holy Spirit:

We are bound to this [open portion] by God, and drawn and counselled and taught, inwardly by the Holy Spirit, and outwardly through the same grace by Holy Church. Our Lord wants us to be occupied in this, rejoicing in him, for he rejoices in us. And the more plentifully we accept from this with reverence and humility, the more do we deserve thanks from him, and the more profit do we win for ourselves (30:228).

The other portion includes "all which is additional to our salvation," which I take to mean God's will for those outside the pale of Christianity and unacquainted with the gospel message of salvation, along with all the aspects of human history that do not appear consistent with Christian doctrine. This is hidden from human understanding in this life:

For this is our Lord's privy counsel, and it is fitting to God's royal dominion to keep his privy counsel in peace, and it is fitting to his servants out of obedience and respect not to wish to know his counsel (30:228).³⁶

Julian speaks in a similar fashion of two kinds of mystery:

One is this great mystery, with all the individual mysteries pertaining to it, and these [God] wishes us to know as hidden until the time that he wishes to reveal them to us plainly. The other is the mysteries which he himself plainly showed in this revelation, for these are mysteries which he wishes to make open and known to us (34:235).

Here Julian's "private" revelations are included with the teachings of the church as part of the open revelation which God wants humans to know.

Julian also speaks of two "judgments," in which her revelations are distinguished from church teaching: the first is "that fair, sweet judgment" which was shown in her revelations, wherein God always looks upon sinners with love; the second is "mixed" human judgment, sometimes "good and lenient," and sometimes "hard and painful." Julian calls the latter the "lower judgment" and equates it with the judgment of the church: "The lower judgment had previously been taught me in Holy Church, and therefore I could not in any way ignore the lower judgment" (45:256-57). The higher judgment, however, comes from God's eternal viewpoint, and while stated as general fact in Julian's revelations, still contains many mysteries hidden within it. The full realization of its meaning will not be available until the end of time.

In all three cases, God's activity towards the world is not limited by the church's understanding and interpretation of God's revelation, even though church teaching is truly God's word. Thereremains a profound mystery surrounding God's dealings with humanity.

The second insight Julian received in support of universal salvation deals with a mysterious deed which God will perform at the end of time:

There is a deed which the blessed trinity will perform on the last day, as I see it, and what the deed will be and how it will be performed is unknown to every creature who is inferior to Christ, and it will be until the deed is done.… This is the great deed ordained by our Lord God from without beginning, treasured and hidden in his blessed breast, known only to himself, through which deed he will make all things well. For just as the blessed trinity created all things from nothing, just so will the same blessed trinity make everything well which is not well (32:232-33).

Julian must mean some further salvific act on the part of God whereby all those presently unconnected with Christianity will somehow be saved at the end of time.³⁷ She refuses to speculate more specifically about it, because God does not wish her to do so (33:235). God's love wants human beings to know it will occur, and it is summarized in the promise, "all will be well." Trusting in this promise will allow Christians "to be at ease in our souls and at peace in love, disregarding every disturbance which could hinder our true rejoicing." But God's power and wisdom, also out of love for humanity, "want to conceal it and hide it from us, what it will be and how it will be done" (32:232).

These two insights, working together, allow Julian to make an eventual reconciliation between church teaching and the message of her revelations. Church teaching is the open portion of God's revelation. God allows the possibility of damnation to be one of the teachings which can lead to salvation. Eternal damnation is understood in a way similar to Julian's reflection on mortal sin, which can be interpreted as "deadly" for us, though it is not actually so in God's sight.3" Church teachings about damnation, like those about mortal sin, are legitimate and necessary; without them human beings would not realize the horror of sin, nor the value of the sacramental life of grace within the church, and they would be tempted to presumption.

But Julian's revelations provide a corrective to this teaching, which she sees as even more important. The fear engendered by any unmitigated teaching about eternal damnation could, in fact, lead many away from salvation and into despair.³⁹ God's promise that "all will be well," points beyond specific church doctrine to a God utterly more loving and mysterious than humans can understand. The promise that such a loving and generous God will indeed "make allwell" allows God's lovers to take courage and find comfort in the midst of their struggle with evil. The way to salvation is through trust and love, not through painful fear.

Julian eventually came to the conclusion that both ways of looking at salvation are needed:

It seemed to me that it was necessary to see and to know that we are sinners and commit many evil deeds which we ought to forsake, and leave many good deeds undone which we ought to do, so that we deserve pain, blame and wrath. And despite all this, I saw truly that our Lord was never angry, and never will be.… I saw in the same revelation that thereare many hidden mysteries which can never be known until the time when God in his goodness has made us worthy to see them (46:259).

With this realization she found a resolution to the apparent contradictions between her revelations and church teaching. She tells us, "I am well satisfied, waiting upon our Lord's will in this great marvel. And now I submit myself to my mother, Holy Church, as a simple child should" (46:259).

Julian does not, strictly speaking, teach a doctrine of universal salvation. For one thing, she allows the possibility that the devil and those enslaved to the powers of evil will sink into nothingness at the end of time. She keeps eternal damnation as a possibility, and admits that church teaching on this subject is legitimate. But she finds it far more important to stress the power of God's love to conquer evil in all its forms and to bring "every kind of thing" into the perfection for which it was created. Since God's love is infinitely more powerful than diabolical or human efforts to perpetrate evil, we can hope that God will effect the salvation even of those whom human judgment deems irrevocably lost.⁴⁰ Since God's might, wisdom, and love exceed by far human ability to know, one ought to submit one's understanding to the greater judgment of God. Finally, Julian expresses faith in some eschatological deed, presently beyond human knowledge and understanding, through which God will bring everything into the fulfillment established as God's will from the beginning.

If Julian's teaching can be summed up in one word, that word is love. Her whole effort is to present to her troubled times the picture of a God who loves absolutely the whole creation which is itself an expression of divine love. Eschatological hope is not misplaced when it trusts that this love can bring all into eternal fulfillment. No more fitting conclusion to a discussion of Julian's eschatology can be found than the words with which she herself ends Showings, words summing up the meaning of her whole revelatory experience:

And from the time that it [the showing] was revealed, I desired many times to know in what was our Lord's meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said: What, do you wish to know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same. But you will never know different, without end.

So I was taught that love is our Lord's meaning. And I saw very certainly in this and in everything that before God made us he loved us, which love was never abated and never will be. And in this love he has done all his works, and in this love he has made all things profitable to us, and in this love our life is everlasting. In our creation we had beginning, but the love in which he created us was in him from without beginning. In this love we have our beginning, and all this shall we see in God without end (86:342-43).

Notes

¹ Leclercq, The Love of Learning, 65-86.

² Note how this image recalls scriptural passages about the eschatological banquet, such as Mt 22:1-10 and Rev 19:9.

³ This passage is full of scriptural echoes. For example, the joy and honor of the first heaven recall the reward promised in the beatitudes to those who suffer for righteousness (Mt 5:6, 11-12), the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30; Lk 19:11-27) and the parable of the last judgment (Mt 25:31-34), and John 12:26: "if anyone serve me the Father will honor him." The second heaven recalls Ps 90:16 and the joy of all heaven over repentant sinners of Lk 15:7, 10.

⁴ Note how this picks up the theme of the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-16).

⁵ This recalls Christ's transfiguration: "and his garments became glistening, intensely white" (Mk 9:3).

⁶ The image of the crown symbolizes that Christ, the faithful servant, receives the reward of the just, as in Isaiah 61:10: "he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself witha garland," and James 1:12: "Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him." See also Heb 2:9: "But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor."

⁷ The use of "city" in this context, recalls Rev 21:2-3: "And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them."' See Leclercq's comments on the symbol of the heavenly Jerusalem (The Love of Learning, 66-70, 76-83).

⁸ This is the union desired by Jesus in John 17:21: "That they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us."

⁹ This passage provides a clear example of the kind of sensual language frequently used in the Middle Ages for describing the experience of God (cf. Bynum, Holy Feast, pp. 150-52). It lists the "spiritual senses," which were often elaborately described in mystical literature (See, for example, Karl Rahner, "The Doctrine of the 'Spiritual Senses' in the Middle Ages," TI XVI, 104-34). The end of the passage has scriptural ties; see 1 Cor 13:12: "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face" and I Jn 3:2: "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

¹⁰ This is an elaboration on the promise of Rev 21:4: "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mouming nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."

¹¹ The trembling of the pillars of heaven is a scriptural image: "the pillars of heaven tremble, and are astounded" (Job 26:11); also, in Isaiah's vision of God, "the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called" (Is 6:4).

¹² Colledge and Walsh point out that Julian may have in mind here the resurrection appearances of Christ in which peace is offered and fear is dispelled (Mt 28:10; Lk 24:36-38; Jn 20:19-21, 26; C&W, 506.13n).

¹³ Note how this parallels Mt 11:28-30, especially "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

¹⁴ The "friendly welcoming" recalls the welcome given to the prodigal son in Lk 15:20.

¹⁵ Compare with Col 3:2: "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth."

¹⁶ See the discussion of this in Chapter 3 above, pp. 56-57.

¹⁷ This passage could owe its inspiration to Phil 4:4-6: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice … Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made to God," and Heb 12:28: "let us be grateful … and let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe."

¹⁸ This echoes the phrase "una voce dicentes" of the Preface, the preamble to the prayer of the heavenly host taken from Isaiah 6:3: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." It is also reminiscent of the picture of heaven given at the end of Augustine's De civitate Dei (22.30).

¹⁹ Aquinas also distinguishes between Uncreated Charity, which is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and created charity, whereby we participate in the mutual love between Father and Son (ST 2-2. Q23.A2). He also understands charity as a virtue infused into the soul (ST 2-2.Q24.A3). See C&W, 727.10n for other references.

²⁰ Julian is obviously applying the message of I John 4:17-18: "In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.… There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love." This thought underlies the teaching of Cassian, Augustine, and Bemard on the "filial fear" of God (cf. Clark, "Fiducia," 101).

²¹ See Chapter 4 above, pp. 74-79.

²² Note here how grace builds on nature. Colledge and Walsh consider this to be one of Julian's finest rhetorical and theological passages. See their comment at 673.20n.

²³ Note the parallel to the thought of Is 11:3: "His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord."

²⁴ See the discussion of this in Pelikan, 174-84.

²⁵ Such extremes were brilliantly satirized by Erasmus (cf. Ten Colloquies, trans. Craig R. Thompson [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1957]). For a discussion of medieval popular devotions, see Ronald C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1977).

²⁶ Julian obviously expects John of Beverly to be known to herreaders, but his fame has not extended to the present day. See C&W, 51 and 447.22n for information about him.

²⁷ The last line of this passage is an obvious paraphrase of Lk 1:38.

²⁸ Note how this passage expresses the sentiment of the Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55). It also contains an allusion to the angel's greeting of Lk 1:28.

²⁹ The notion of Apocatastasis panton is found in Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa. It was strongly attacked by Augustine. Julian, so thoroughly Augustinian in other respects, parts from him here, as she does with her teaching on sin. Apocatastasis was formally condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 543. Julian was correct in understanding this to be against church teaching (see the discussion of this in Chapter I above, pp. 18-22, with respect to the danger of heresy). For a bibliography on apocatastasis, see Gotthold Muller, Apocatastasis Panton: A Bibliography (Basel: Basler Missionsbuchhandlung, 1969).

³⁰ Cf. Mt 25:41; Is 14:12-14.

³¹ Lk 18:27: "What is impossible with men is possible with God" and par. in Mt 19:26, and Lk 1:37: "For with God nothing will be impossible" (cf. also Gen 18:14; Job 42:2; Jer 32:17).

³² Note the congruence here with Ps 69:28: "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous."

³³ Clark makes this interpretation ("Fiducia," 105).

³⁴ Lk 15:3-10.

³⁵ Julian never even considers the solution advanced by Calvin a century and a half later, that God predestines some to damnation. This would be irreconcilable with her understanding of God's love.

³⁶ Note I Cor 2:7: "But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification"; Rom 11:33: "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" and Sir 11:4: "For the works of the Lord are wonderful, and his works are concealed from men."

³⁷ This deed is not to be confused with another deed Julian speaks of which pertains to the future salvation of the individual Christian, referring especially to how God will make human sinfulness the cause of heavenly bliss, something which remains amystery to us in this present life, but which we will understand immediately upon entering heaven. Julian makes a special effort to distinguish this deed from the one mentioned earlier (36:238-40).

³⁸ See the discussion of this in Chapter 6 above, p. 127.

³⁹ Julian is trying to counteract the great fear of death and final judgment which permeated the popular religion of her day, made explicit, for instance, in the Dies Irae and the Libera Me of the Mass for the Dead. This fear is, as Colledge and Walsh note, contrary to her spirit of trust (C&W, 729.1 In).

⁴⁰ This is similar to Karl Rahner's conclusion about universal salvation. See "The Hermeneutics of Eschatological Assertions," TI IV, 338-40. See also John R. Sachs, S.J., "Current Eschatology: Universal Salvation and the Problem of Hell," Theological Studies 52:2 (1991):227-54.

Works Cited

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