In the fourteenth century, a woman named Julian was living
the solitary life of an anchoress.
An anchoress was a woman vowed to chastity and stability of
abode. She was enclosed in a cell until her death. Her life’s purpose being contemplation
and unceasing prayer focused on God.
Her cell was one hundred square feet with three windows for
viewing the sacrament and taking communion.
There Julian lived and prayed, ate her meals and slept,
worked at some simple task such as needlework, meditated on her revelations and
wrote her book for the next twenty, thirty, perhaps forty years, never leaving
the cell.
At age 30 she was struck with severe illness, nearly dying.
A priest called to her bedside to administer the last rites,
held up a crucifix before her face.
Suddenly, she felt all pain cease.
During the illness, she received 15 visions of God and
reflected on their meaning for the next 20 years in a book she wrote, Showings
of the Revelations of God’s Love.
During the time she wrote, medieval England was facing trying
times with economic collapse, bubonic plague, and dynastic wars such as the
Hundred Year’s Wars.
People were experiencing anxiety, fear, pessimism, and God’s
punishment.
As Julian was writing, even in the suffering illness and
pain, God said to her: “All will be well. You will see it yourself, that every
kind of thing will be well.”
Our times have very different categories of suffering.
We’re struggling through stressful times: economic uncertainty,
anxiety, food insecurity, and fear.
God’s powerful words of hope for Julian are just as powerful
and certain, and hopeful for us.
“And all will be well. In all manner of things, all will be well.
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