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Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
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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 V “God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself —only in Thee I have all”
CHAPTER VII “The Shewing is not other than of faith, nor less nor more”
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 XIII “The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ ”
CHAPTER XVI “A Part of His Passion”
CHAPTER XVIII “When He was in pain, we were in pain”
CHAPTER XXIII “The Glad Giver” “All the Trinity wrought in the Passion of Jesus Christ”
CHAPTER XXVI “It is I, it is I”
CHAPTER XXIX “How could all be well, for the great harm that is come by sin to the creature?”
CHAPTER XXXVIII In Heaven “the token of sin is turned to worship.”— Examples thereof
CHAPTER XLI “ I am the Ground of thy beseeching.
CHAPTER XLIII “Prayer uniteth the soul to God”
CHAPTER LV “Christ is our Way”—“Mankind shall be restored from double death”
CHAPTER LVII “In Christ our two natures are united”
CHAPTER LX “The Kind, loving, Mother”
CHAPTER LXIV “ Thou shalt come up above
CHAPTER LXIX “I was delivered from the Enemy by the virtue of Christ’s Passion”
CHAPTER LXXI “Three manners of looking seen in our Lord’s Countenance”
CHAPTER LXXIV “There is no dread that fully pleaseth God in us but reverent dread”
CHAPTER LXXVI “The soul that beholdeth the fair nature of our Lord Jesus, it hateth no hell but sin”
CHAPTER LXXII “In falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love ”
CHAPTER LXXXIII “Life, Love, and Light”
CHAPTER LXXXV “Lord, blessed mayest Thou be, for it is thus: it is well”
IN all this blessed Shewing our good Lord gave understanding that the Sight should pass: which blessed Shewing the Faith keepeth, with His own good will and His grace. For He left with me neither sign nor token whereby I might know it, but He left with me His own blessed word in true understanding, bidding me full mightily that I should believe it. And so I do,—Blessed may He be!—I believe that He is our Saviour that shewed it, and that it is the Faith that He shewed: and therefore I believe it, rejoicing. And thereto I am bounden by all His own meaning, with the next words that follow: Keep thee therein, and comfort thee therewith, and trust thou thereto.
Thus I am bounden to keep it in my faith. For on the same day that it was shewed, what time that the Sight was passed, as a wretch I forsook it, and openly I said that I had raved. Then our Lord Jesus of His mercy would not let it perish, but He showed it all again within in my .soul with more fulness, with the blessed light of His precious love: saying these words full mightily and full meekly: Wit it now well: it was no raving that thou sawest this day. As if He had said: For that the Sight was passed from thee, thou losedst it and hadst 171
not skill to keep it. But wit it now; that is to say, now that thou seest it. This was said not only for that same time, but also to set thereupon the ground of my faith when He saith anon following: But take it, believe it, and keep thee therein and comfort thee therewith and trust thou thereto; and thou shalt not be overcome.
In these six words that follow (Take it—[etc.] His meaning is to fasten it faithfully in our heart: for He willeth that it dwell with us in faith to our life’s end, and after in fulness of joy, desiring that we have ever steadfast trust in His blissful behest—knowing His Goodness.
For our faith is contraried in diverse manners by our own blindness, and our spiritual enemy, within and without; and therefore our precious Lover helpeth us with spiritual sight and true teaching in sundry manners within and without, whereby that we may know Him. And therefore in whatsoever manner He teacheth us, He willeth that we perceive Him wisely, receive Him sweetly, and keep us in Him faithfully. For 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 the Faith, there willeth the Lord that we keep us. For we have by His goodness and His own working to keep us in the Faith; and by His sufferance through ghostly enmity we are assayed in the Faith and made mighty. For if our faith had none enmity, it should deserve no meed, according to the understanding that I have in all our Lord’s teaching. 172