Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

 CHAPTER I “A Revelation of Love—in Sixteen Shewings”

 CHAPTER II “A simple creature unlettered.—Which creature afore desired three gifts of God”

 CHAPTER III “I desired to suffer with Him”

 CHAPTER IV “I saw . . . as it were in the time of His Passion . . . And in the same Shewing suddenly the Trinity filled my heart with utmost joy”

 CHAPTER V “God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself —only in Thee I have all”

 CHAPTER VI “The Goodness of God is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part of our need”

 CHAPTER VII “The Shewing is not other than of faith, nor less nor more”

 CHAPTER VIII “In all this I was greatly stirred in charity to my fellow-Christians that they might see and know the same that I saw”

 CHAPTER IX “If I look singularly to myself, I am right nought”

 CHAPTER X “God willeth to be seen and to be sought: to be abided and to be trusted”

 CHAPTER XI “All thing that is done, it is well done: for our Lord God doeth all.” “Sin is no deed”

 CHAPTER XII “The dearworthy blood of our Lord Jesus Christ as verily as it is most precious, so verily it is most plenteous”

 CHAPTER XIII “The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ ”

 CHAPTER XIV “The age of every man shall be acknowledged before him in Heaven, and every man shall be rewarded for his willing service and for his time

 CHAPTER XV “It is not God’s will that we follow the feeling of pains in sorrow and mourning for them”

 CHAPTER XVI “A Part of His Passion”

 CHAPTER XVII “How might any pain be more to me than to see Him that is all my life, and all my bliss, and all my joy suffer?”

 CHAPTER XVIII “When He was in pain, we were in pain”

 CHAPTER XIX “Thus was I learned to choose Jesus for my Heaven, whom I saw only in pain at that time ”

 CHAPTER XX “For every man’s sin that shall be saved He suffered, and every man’s sorrow and desolation He saw, and sorrowed for Kinship and Love”

 CHAPTER XXI “We be now with Him in His Pains and His Passion, dying. We shall be with Him in Heaven. Through learning in this little pain that we suff

 CHAPTER XXII “The Love that made Him to suffer passeth so far all His Pains as Heaven is above Earth”

 CHAPTER XXIII “The Glad Giver” “All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Jesus Christ”

 CHAPTER XXIV “Our Lord looked unto His [wounded] Side, and beheld, rejoicing. . . . Lo! how I loved thee

 CHAPTER XXV “I wot well that thou wouldst see my blessed Mother. . . .” “Wilt thou see in her how thou art loved?”

 CHAPTER XXVI “It is I, it is I”

 CHAPTER XXVII “Often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not hindered: for then, methought, all should have

 CHAPTER XXVIII “Each brotherly compassion that man hath on his fellow Christians, with charity, it is Christ in him”

 CHAPTER XXIX “How could all be well, for the great harm that is come by sin to the creature?”

 CHAPTER XXX “Two parts of Truth: the part that is open: our Saviour and our salvation —and the part that is hid and shut up from us: all beside our sa

 CHAPTER XXXI “The Spiritual Thirst (which was in Him from without beginning) is desire in Him as long as we be in need, drawing us up to His Bliss”

 CHAPTER XXXII “There be deeds evil done in our sight, and so great harms taken, that it seemeth to us that it were impossible that ever it should come

 CHAPTER XXXIII “It is God’s will that we have great regard to all His deeds that He hath done, but evermore it needeth us to leave the beholding what

 CHAPTER XXXIV “All that is speedful for us to learn and to know, full courteously will our Lord shew us”

 CHAPTER XXXV “I desired to learn assuredly as to a certain creature that I loved. . . . It is more worship to God to behold Him in all

 CHAPTER XXXVI “My sin shall not hinder His Goodness working. . . . A deed shall be done—as we come to Heaven—and it may be known here in part —though

 CHAPTER XXXVII “In every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall.”—“For failing of Love on our part, there

 CHAPTER XXXVIII In Heaven “the token of sin is turned to worship.”— Examples thereof

 CHAPTER XXXIX “Sin is the sharpest scourge. . . . By contrition we are made clean, by compassion we are made ready, and by true longing towards God we

 CHAPTER XL “True love teacheth us that we should hate sin only for love.” “To me was shewed no harder hell than sin.” “God willeth that we endlessly h

 CHAPTER XLI “ I am the Ground of thy beseeching.

 CHAPTER XLII “Prayer is a right understanding of that fulness of joy that is to come, with accordant longing and sure trust”

 CHAPTER XLIII “Prayer uniteth the soul to God”

 CHAPTER XLIV “God is endless, sovereign Truth,—Wisdom,—Love, not-made and man’s Soul is a creature in God which hath the same properties made”

 CHAPTER XLV “All heavenly things and all earthly things that belong to Heaven are comprehended in these two judgments”

 CHAPTER XLVI “It is needful to see and to know that we are sinners: wherefore we deserve pain and wrath.” “He is God: Good, Life, Truth, Love, Peace:

 CHAPTER XLVII “We fail oftentimes of the sight of Him, and anon we fall into our self, and then find we no feeling of right,—nought but contrariness t

 CHAPTER XLVIII “I beheld the property of Mercy, and I beheld the property of Grace: which have two manners of working in one love ”

 CHAPTER XLIX “Where our Lord appeareth, peace is taken, and wrath hath. no place.” “Immediately is the soul made at one with God when it is truly set

 CHAPTER L “The blame of our sin continually hangeth upon us.” “In the sight of God the soul that shall be saved was never dead, nor ever shall be dead

 CHAPTER LI “He is the Head, and we be His members.” “Therefore our Father nor may nor will more blame assign to us than to His own Son, precious and w

 CHAPTER LII “We have now matter of mourning: for our sin is cause of Christ’s pains and we have, lastingly, matter of joy: for endless love made Him

 CHAPTER LIII “In every soul that shall be saved is a Godly Will that never assented to sin, nor ever shall.” “Ere that He made us He loved us, and whe

 CHAPTER LIV “Faith is nought else but a right understanding, with true belief and sure trust, of our Being: that we are in God, and God is in us: Whom

 CHAPTER LV “Christ is our Way”—“Mankind shall be restored from double death”

 CHAPTER LVI “God is nearer to us than our own soul” “We can never come to full knowing of God till we know first clearly our own Soul”

 CHAPTER LVII “In Christ our two natures are united”

 CHAPTER LVIII “All our life is in three: ‘Nature, Mercy, Grace.’ The high Might of the Trinity is our Father, and the deep Wisdom of the Trinity is ou

 CHAPTER LIX “Jesus Christ that doeth Good against evil is our Very Mother: we have our Being of Him where the Ground of Motherhood beginneth,—with all

 CHAPTER LX “The Kind, loving, Mother”

 CHAPTER LXI “By the assay of this falling we shall have an high marvellous knowing of Love in God, without end. For strong and marvellous is that love

 CHAPTER LXII “God is Very Father and Very Mother of Nature: and all natures that He hath made to flow out of Him to work His will shall be restored an

 CHAPTER LXIII “As verily as sin is unclean, so verily is it unkind”—a disease or monstrous thing against nature. “He shall heal us full fair.”

 CHAPTER LXIV “ Thou shalt come up above

 CHAPTER LXV “The Charity of God maketh in us such a unity that, when it is truly seen, no man can part himself from other”

 CHAPTER LXVI “All was closed, and I saw no more.” “For the folly of feeling a little bodily pain I unwisely lost for the time the comfort of all this

 CHAPTER LXVII “The place that Jesus taketh in our soul He shall never remove from, without end:—for in us is His homliest home and His endless dwellin

 CHAPTER LXVIII “He said not: Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be afflicted Thou shalt not be overcome

 CHAPTER LXIX “I was delivered from the Enemy by the virtue of Christ’s Passion”

 CHAPTER LXX “Above the Faith is no goodness kept in this life, as to my sight, and beneath the Faith is no help of soul but in there

 CHAPTER LXXI “Three manners of looking seen in our Lord’s Countenance”

 CHAPTER LXXII “As long as we be meddling with any part of sin we shall never see clearly the Blissful Countenance of our Lord”

 CHAPTER LXXIII “Two manners of sickness that we have: impatience, or sloth —despair, or mistrustful dread”

 CHAPTER LXXIV “There is no dread that fully pleaseth God in us but reverent dread”

 CHAPTER LXXV “We shall see verily the cause of all things that He hath done and evermore we shall see the cause of all things that He hath permitted”

 CHAPTER LXXVI “The soul that beholdeth the fair nature of our Lord Jesus, it hateth no hell but sin”

 CHAPTER LXXVII “Accuse not thyself overmuch, deeming that thy tribulation and thy woe is all thy fault.” “All thy living is penance profitable.” “In t

 CHAPTER LXXVIII “Though we be highly lifted up into contemplation by the special gift of our Lord, yet it is needful to us to have knowledge and sight

 CHAPTER LXXIX “I was taught that I should see mine own sin, and not other men’s sin except it may be for comfort and help of my fellow-Christians” (lx

 CHAPTER LXXX “Himself is nearest and meekest, highest and lowest, and doeth all.” Love suffereth never to be without Pity”

 CHAPTER LXXXI “God seeth all our living a penance: for nature-longing of our love is to Him a lasting penance in us.” “His love maketh Him to long”

 CHAPTER LXXII “In falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love ”

 CHAPTER LXXXIII “Life, Love, and Light”

 CHAPTER LXXXIV “Charity”

 CHAPTER LXXXV “Lord, blessed mayest Thou be, for it is thus: it is well”

 CHAPTER LXXXVI “Love was our Lord’s Meaning”

CHAPTER XXVII “Often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not hindered: for then, methought, all should have been well.” “Sin is behovable—[playeth a needful part]—; but all shall be well”

AFTER this the Lord brought to my mind the longing that I had to Him afore. And I saw that nothing letted me but sin. And so I looked, generally, upon us all, and methought: If sin had not been, we should all have been clean and like to our Lord, as He made us.

And thus, in my folly, afore this time often I wondered why by the great foreseeing wisdom of God the beginning of sin was not letted: for then, methought, all should have been well. This stirring [of mind] was 55

much to be forsaken, but nevertheless mourning and sorrow I made therefor, without reason and discretion.

But Jesus, who in this Vision informed me of all that is needful to me, answered by this word and said: It behoved that there should be sin; [1] but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

In this naked word sin, our Lord brought to my mind, generally, all that is not good, and the shameful despite and the utter noughting that He bare for us in this life, and His dying; and all the pains and passions of all His creatures, ghostly and bodily; (for we be all partly noughted, and we shall be noughted following our Master, Jesus, till we be full purged, that is to say, till we be fully noughted of our deadly flesh and of all our inward affections which are not very good;) and the beholding of this, with all pains that ever were or ever shall be,—and with all these I understand the Passion of Christ for most pain, and overpassing. All this was shewed in a touch and quickly passed over into comfort: for our good Lord would not that the soul were affeared of this terrible sight.

But I saw not sin: for I believe it hath no manner of substance nor no part of being, nor could it be known but by the pain it is cause of.

And thus pain, it is something, as to my sight, for a time; for it purgeth, and maketh us to know ourselves and to ask mercy. For the Passion of our Lord is comfort to us against all this, and so is His blessed will. 56

And for the tender love that our good Lord hath to all that shall be saved, He comforteth readily and sweetly, signifying thus: It is sooth [1] that sin is cause of all this pain; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner [of] thing shall be well.

These words were said full tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any that shall be saved. Then were it a great unkindness to blame or wonder on God for my sin, since He blameth not me for sin.

And in these words I saw a marvellous high mystery hid in God, which mystery He shall openly make known to us in Heaven: in which knowing we shall verily see the cause why He suffered sin to come. In which sight we shall endlessly joy in our Lord God.