The Endless, Loving Passion of God

Today with Julian – February 11th
No Getting Around the Passion

God’s goodness encompasses all His creatures
and all His blessed works,
and overpasses everything, without end,
for He is Endlessness.
And He has made us for Himself only,
and He restored us by His blessed Passion,
and He keeps us in His blessed Love.
And all this is of His goodness.

(Mother Julian, Chapter 5)

Many lovers of Mother Julian have a volume of her text filled with bookmarks and underlinings:
“God, of your goodness, give me yourself”
“Live gladly and merrily because of His love”
“Love was our Lord’s meaning”
“Jesus, our Mother”
“There is no wrath in God”

Many lovers of Julian can quote many of her sayings about the Love of God. But there are few bookmarks among the pages of the Passion of Christ. Nobody quotes “I saw the red blood flowing down . . .” For many find the graphic description of the Passion unsettling. And rather than admit to finding it unsettling, they call it “morbid,” or “medieval.” And then, of course, they miss the entire underpinning of Julian’s work. Everything springs from her deathbed vision of the Passion, brought on by the Crucifix held before her by her curate. Everything – goodness, love, lack of wrath, keeping, protecting, caring for creation – everything hinges upon her vision of the Passion.  Julian tells us she experience three kinds of visions, or showings:  Bodily (physical), Words of Understanding (reason), and Spiritual (intuitive.)  It is the five Bodily Showings that form the inspiration and framework for all that follows:

The red blood flowing from the crown of thorns upon His forehead
The bruised and bloodless changing of color of His fair face
The lacerated flesh of His lash wounds
The horrible cold and bloodless drying of His final pains
His tender heart broken in two

It is horror, yes, and it is possible to see how one would recoil from it. But it is not the horror of vicarious punishment. It is not the horror of Violence wrought by Father upon Son. It is the infinite magnitude of the love of God; God’s endless, loving Passion for His creation.  God’s self expression of His words, “No greater love . . .”

None of the beauty of Julian is ours without the cost of that beauty being ours also. When Christ says to Julian, “See how I loved thee,” He was pointing to the difficult passages. The good news is that the Revelation of His Love transfigures the Revelation of His Passion. And you do not get to Chapter Five without going through Chapter Four first.

~ Will, ObJN