On May 8th, in the year 1373, Julian of Norwich had a series of visions which coloured her whole life thereafter and on which, she spent the rest of that life reflecting. She wrote about it in a little book called "Revelations of Divine Love".
I may have first heard of her around 1973, the six hundredth anniversary of her experience. Her book had come back into public awareness at least at the beginning of the 20th century because my copy was published in 1926. It was given to me by the housekeeper to our parish priest when he died. He had lent it to me when I asked him about her and I fell in love with it immediately.
The foreword explains that, while the spelling is modern, "the actual wording of the text has been kept considerably closer to the text than....." other editions". It is this text that I find so enchanting.
By chance, her name came up in a conversation the other evening and caused me to pick up the book which has lain in my desk for many a year. Being reminded that the date of her vision was today, this gave me the idea to share these thoughts and, perhaps, from time to time, to share my favourite passages.
I'll copy my two favourites in a new post.
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