It highlights the moral component of a relationship of love in which the lovers recognize a standard of conduct that governs that relationship and the reality that even lovers fail one another. I will argue that the wounds of contrition, compassion, and longing are necessary to a life of love, both religious and secular, in an imperfect world such as ours.Ĭontrition is the sorrow one feels for wrongdoing. The three wounds were of “true contrition,” “loving compassion,” and “longing with my will for God.” According to Julian, the first two graces or gifts were conditional because they were “not the ordinary practice of prayer.” The gift of the wounds was not a conditional request I think because she says that they were “continual,” and thus are considered normative for the Christian life. In chapter two of her book, Julian asked for “graces by the gift of God”-a recollection of Christ’s Passion or his death, bodily sickness, and three wounds. Now, you already are probably asking, “How could a person who lived 600 years ago walled up in a cell for decades until her death and claiming to have visions be able to help me in my struggles?” Well, as I often tell my students, we can learn a great deal from people who come from different times and places because they bring to the table perspectives that enable us to overcome the limitations of our own experiences and knowledge.
As an anchoress, Julian was walled up in a cell by a church in Norwich with only a small window for food and observing church services and another to receive visitors.
Julian was an anchoress that is, a woman who withdraws from secular society to devote herself to prayer and contemplation.
Her Showings or, as it is often titled, Revelations of Divine Love is a collection of reflections on a series of sixteen visions she had and is claimed to be the first book published in English by a woman. Julian of Norwich was an English mystic who lived from 1342/43 to sometime after 1416. At approximately the same time I was teaching from Julian of Norwich’s Showings and was struck by her desire for “three gifts of God” and how they relate to the mysterious role of suffering and a life of love. However, a few weeks ago I was struck with a severe pain running down the entire length of my left leg from some pinched nerve.
I have lived a life of quite undeserved happiness and health. “… and those only that feel the keener wound are known as Lovers”
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