Mother Julian
THESE Revelations were shewed to a simple creature unlettered, the year of our Lord 1373, the Thirteenth day of May.
Which creature [had] afore desired three gifts of God:
The First was mind of His Passion;
The Second was bodily sickness in youth, at thirty years of age;
The Third was to have of God’s gift three wounds.
As to the First, methought I had some feeling in the Passion of Christ, but yet I desired more by the grace of God. Methought I would have been that time with Mary Magdalene, and with other that were Christ’s lovers, and therefore I desired a bodily sight wherein I might have more knowledge of the bodily pains of our Saviour and of the compassion of our Lady and of all His true lovers that saw, that time, His pains. For I would be one of them and suffer with Him.
Other sight nor shewing of God desired I never none, till the soul were disparted from the body. The cause of this petition was that after the shewing I should have the more true mind in the Passion of Christ.
The Second came to my mind with contrition; [I] freely desiring that sickness [to be] so hard as to death, that I might in that sickness receive all my rites of Holy Church, myself thinking that I should die, and that all creatures might suppose the same that saw me: for I would have no manner of comfort of earthly life. In this sickness I desired to have all manner of pains bodily and ghostly that I should have if I should die, (with all the dreads and tempests of the fiends) except the outpassing of the soul. And this I meant for [that] I would be purged, by the mercy of God, and afterward live more to the worship of God because of that sickness. And that for the more furthering in my death: for I desired to be soon with my God.
These two desires of the Passion and the sickness I desired with a condition, saying thus: Lord, Thou knowest what I would,—if it be Thy will that I have it—; and if it be not Thy will, good Lord, be not displeased: for I will nought but as Thou wilt.
(Julian, Chapter II)
The first two of Julian’s desired gifts are mentioned in this passage: A dramatic vision of Christ’s Passion, as if she had been there, so she could better feel, understand, and appreciate this experience, and a sickness near unto death so she might receive all rites of the church, and be so humbled by the near death experience that she might have a more humble faith.
Note that Julian suspected these gifts might be over and above what was needed for a simple faith, and that God might not grant such extra consolation. So she wished these things only if God approves. And then she forgot all about them, to concentrate on the third gift (see tomorrow, the hurricane willing!)
We do not think with the medieval mind of Julian, but what gifts do we ask that we might know Christ better, and that our faith be more humble?
~ Laird Will
