A mother's view of God's love

"My Lord!"

The cry jerked the bored watchers into wakefulness as they crowded around the bed. The old priest was tired of waiting; after all, she was going to die, so why didn't she get on with it? Her mother watched with much deeper care and concern, but after three nights of waiting and the loss of all hope, she too was exhausted.

Now there was hope. The coma broke as the young woman cried out - but that cry had nothing to do with pain. Her call was the shout of ecstasy from a soul caught up in visionary rapture. This sick body would recover, live to a respectable age and become today's most widely read mediaeval female author - but her real name would never be known.

Julian of Norwich is probably our earliest published English woman writer. As a visionary of exceptional clarity, she ranks among the leading mystics of her age; but we know her only by a nickname. After recovering from the brink of death and recalling the visions she saw during those lost days and nights, she volunteered to be an anchoress, living her life of prayer in a cell attached to the riverside church at Carrow in Norwich. The church was dedicated to St Julian and that is how she got the name by which she has been remembered through the centuries. This lack of signature is typical of her self-effacing nature, which allowed her to write of deep spiritual experience but reveal almost nothing about her personal history or manner of life. We know from eyewitness accounts that she was respected - most notably from that strange visionary, Marjorie Kemp of Kings Lynn, who sought Julian's advice...

//Continued