Julian of Norwich - a sonnet
Icon of Julian with her cat by Br Robert Lentz OFM
Finding Christ in Isolation: A Sonnet for Julian of Norwich
by Malcolm Guite
May 8, 2024, Malcolm Guite’s blog
The 8th of May is the feast day of Julian of Norwich, sometimes known as Mother Julian or Lady Julian. She was an English Mystic of the late fourteenth Century, living as an anchoress in Norwich. Her life as an anchoress, finding Christ in isolation, and then finding that Christ transfigured that isolation into a communion of love, was an inspiration for many during lockdown. Her ‘Shewings’, or Revelations of Divine Love, a series of mystical visions of and conversations with Jesus, remain a source of profound wisdom and a gift to the church, present and future. For a good introduction to her work I recommend Julia Bolton Holloway’s website, she is herself an anchoress in Florence, and Robert Llewlyn’s classic work ‘With Pity, not With Blame, now reprinted by the Canterbury Press.
This poem is from my book The Singing Bowl which you can buy on Amazon or order from any good bookshop. Please feel free to use this poem in services, and print it in service bulletins; just include a brief acknowledgment that it comes from ‘The Singing Bowl,’ Canterbury Press, 2013. Thanks
As always, you can hear the poem by clicking on the ‘play’ button or on the title.
Show me O anchoress, your anchor-hold
Deep in the love of God, and hold me fast.
Show me again in whose hands we are held,
Speak to me from your window in the past,
Tell me again the tale of Love’s compassion
For all of us who fall onto the mire,
How he is wounded with us, how his passion
Quickens the love that haunted our desire.
Show me again the wonder of at-one-ment
Of Christ-in-us distinct and yet the same,
Who makes, and loves, and keeps us in each moment,
And looks on us with pity not with blame.
Keep telling me, for all my faith may waver,
Love is his meaning, only love, forever.
From the Amhurst Manuscript of Julian’s showings
https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2024/05/08/finding-christ-in-isolation-a-sonnet-for-julian-of-norwich-5/