mysticism

“I saw Him—yet the more I saw the more I needed to see. I had Him –and the more I had of Him the more I knew I lacked [wanted].”
Julian of Norwich: Showings. Translated by Edmund Colledge and James Walsh. New York: Paulist Press, 1978.

Julian of Norwich (England) is perhaps the best known and most loved mystic in the history of spirituality. Her understanding of God was one of extraordinary and loving intimacy. She was the first woman to write a book in English and is still being read 700 years later!

Julian grew up in Norwich and moved only a short distance from home to a convent. She became an anchorite nun, meaning she was walled into a cell built on the side of the cathedral in Norwich. She entered the cell, it was bricked up and there she stayed for over forty years. She had a window into the church to receive the Eucharist and a window onto the world from which she offered spiritual direction. But she remained in this cell with her cat for the purpose of devoting her life to prayer.

Astonishing then, that we would ever hear of her life seven centuries later.

Her primary contribution to spirituality was a series of ‘showings’ or revelations she received from God through prayer. She was in a comatose state for a couple of days during an illness. When she awoke, she began writing her messages of God’s tender love for us. She wrote it out immediately and then spent the next twenty years expanding her ‘revelations of divine love’.

For a look at five women saints including Julian, see Under Her Wings: Spiritual Guidance from Women Saints, Kathy Bence , Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2001. (The others in this book include: Catherine of Siena, Madam Guyon, Therese of Lisieux, and Teresa of Avila.)

URL Websites on Julian
For a website with links to writings on and by Julian, click here.
For a collection of Julian's writings, click here.

An excerpt from Under Her Wings: Spiritual Guidance from Women Saints by Kathy Bence. Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2001, p. 170-172.

And I saw the working of all the blessed Trinity: in which I understood these three properties: God as Father, God as Mother, and God as Lord, in one God.

In our Father Almighty we have our keeping and our bliss as part of our God–given nature. This is what it means to be made in the image of God.

And in the Second Person (Jesus), by skill and by wisdom, are we restored and saved: for He is our Mother, Brother and Savior.

And in our good Lord, the Holy Ghost, we are rewarded and given mercy for our living and our troubles, endlessly surpassing all we could desire by His marvelous courtesy and His high plenteous grace.

For all our life is in three: in the first we have our Being, the second we have our Increasing, and in the third we have our Fulfilling. The first is Nature, the second is Mercy and the third is Grace. Showings, Ch. LVIII, p. 144-145

How could a fourteenth century woman come up with the idea of the motherhood of God? She was a nun of the Catholic faith, where men ruled, in an era when men ruled. Yet Julian conceives of God as parents: father, mother and Holy Spirit.

Julian, in grappling with the concept of the Trinitarian nature of God, chooses a familiar concept to aid our understanding of the fullness of the nature of God.

The Fatherhood of God is most familiar to us, but, as usual, Julian adds a new twist. She sees in God’s Fatherhood our keeping and our bliss. “Keeping” in Julian’s day referred to provision; in this case, God’s providential care of us. God, the Father, provides for all our physical needs: food, shelter, clothing, family and all the other essentials. He is the Ultimate Father, tenderly providing for His children’s well being.

But Julian also describes God’s Fatherhood as our ‘bliss’. What does she mean by bliss?

For her, God was her life, her joy, her bliss. She was first a spiritual person, and oh, by the way, a physical being as well. For her, life, bliss, was her relationship with God.

She implies here that our real purpose on earth is this relationship with God. This is our bliss. This is our dessert, we might say and the rest of the life is vegetables.

So while God is clearly Father for Julian, He is also Mother. (Note how she still uses masculine pronouns even when discussing God as mother.) What does a mother do? She (He?) restores and saves us. Restoring sounds very much like nurturing. Mothers often restore skinned knees, sagging spirits and energy levels. All of those tender characteristics we associate with mothers caring for our ‘little’ needs in life, fit well into this picture of Christ as mother. Jesus takes time to listen to the “little people” in the Gospels, makes lunches, and calms the fears of His (Her) children. Restoration is my favorite word for what Jesus came to do.

But Jesus the Mother also saves God’s people from their sins. We couldn’t do that for ourselves and Jesus lovingly takes our punishment on the cross for our sins. Doesn’t that sound like something a mother would do—give her life to save one of her children? Julian seemed to think so. She calls Jesus “our Mother, Brother, and Savior”.

And to the Holy Spirit, Julian assigns rewarding, giving mercy for daily living, and continually surpassing our expectations in giving grace for our every need. I would love to hear more of how Julian understood the Holy Spirit to be rewarding us in this life. Did she mean rewards for faithfulness, crowns in heaven or simply, blessing? Any or all of these definitions please me. I think she meant that the Holy Spirit is intimately involved in our lives, giving us whatever we need at just the time we need it.

I like to think of the Holy Spirit as the personality of Jesus left behind in spirit form. His body was gone but His spirit remained in some mysterious form to guide and bless us. For the Holy Spirit’s job is helping us with daily living—giving mercy in our troubles, says Julian.

“For our life is in three” says Julian. In God the Father we have our “Being”. Whether or not we acknowledge God, it is still God that gives us our life and breath and our image mirroring the image of God. Colossians says our life is “hid in God”. I think this is precisely what Julian wants us to remember. Our real life, our real selves are birthed and sustained by our relationship with God. This is our nature, who we are meant to be.

Our Being is in God and our “Increasing” comes through Christ, our mother. Our well-being and our spiritual growth comes through the nurture of this Christ-mother who tends and nurtures us. And it is mercy that nourishes and ‘increases’ us.

Our “Fulfilling” then, is completed by the Spirit. Our desires and ambitions, both spiritual and temporal are supervised, no fulfilled, by the Spirit. And this is accomplished by the abundant grace of God. Grace comforts in time of need and refines us when we need reining in.

What can this say to us but that God is ALL? He knows our needs before we ask and has amply provided all in this amazing Trinity of Godhood.

? Reflection Questions:

1 – To which of the three persons of the Trinity do you best (most often) relate? Have you ever considered why?

2 – What does God as Father mean to you? Is this a positive connection for you or does it conjure up negative associations for you?

3 – How do you respond to Julian’s thought of God as Mother? Can you see feminine characteristics to God? If so, which ones?

4 – What is your mental picture of the Holy Spirit? Do you ever pray to the Holy Spirit? Why or why not?

5 – Have you ever meditated on the mercy and grace of God? Have you ever experienced them in a real way? When?

Related Scriptures

Exercise

Take some opportunity to observe a mother and her child. Note her tender nurture and then mentally apply that mothering to Christ. Allow Christ to restore and save that in you which craves a mother’s tender, loving care.

“The works translated in this book belong to the devotional classics of the English church, and are among the greatest of them all. No one who reads them can fail to catch something of their splendour and charm. They spring from an age when English mysticism was in full flower…with such timelessness and reality that their influence is as great today as it has been since that remarkable, inexplicable [fourteenth] century.”

The Cloud of Unknowing is a classic English mystical work attempting to describe contemplative prayer. The 1300’s were the height of an era of an emphasis on mystical (experiential) knowing of God. The anonymous writer attempted to describe how impossible it is to truly know God’s presence directly and yet, by God’s grace, we can encounter our living God.

The goal of contemplation or apophatic prayer is to still our minds sufficiently to experience God’s presence without our controlling or limiting God. It is NOT the same as emptying the mind to experience ourselves, as eastern religions suggest.

Others (Some attribute this list to John Wesley.) see four ways of knowing God:

                1. Scripture
                2. Tradition
                3. Reason
                4. Experience

Many generations emphasize one or two of these over the others. others. Past centuries have held strongly to reason (mind) and tradition. Our current culture is much more like that of the mystics, who emphasized experiencing God. Perhaps the best combination is to experience God through Scripture, using both heart and mind. This was primarily the goal of the mystics.

Ø Dig deeper into the thinking (writing) of Julian of Norwich and wrestle with one of her radical thoughts (like the motherly aspects of God).

Ø Read a short passage of the Cloud of Unknowing and meditate on the mystery (and invisibility) of God.

Ø Which kind of prayer appeals most to you? Would you be willing to experiment with the other type?

URL Websites on Christian Mysticism
For a 'Who's Who' of mysticism, click here.
For a collection of links relating to Christian mysticism, click here.

The four stages of prayer described below are adapted from The Armchair Mystic by Mark Thibodeaux.

Examples include: liturgy, Lord’s prayer, Psalms, other written or memorized prayers.

Words from these prayers . . .
        connect you with the historical and universal church.
        help you when you don't know what to say.
        give you appropriate words when you don't feel like praying.

      Don't see such prayers as magical.
      Beware of pride in fulfilling a daily duty.
      Try to move beyond mere mechanical repetition of familiar words.

        Pay close attention to the familiar words.
        Ask yourself "How is God [How am I. . ., How is my world . . .] described in this phrase?
        Envision yourself praying the words with others around the world.
        Try singing the words.

Pray in your own words. Say what you need to say.
Use this method when you need to vent, process, or make requests.
Don't worry about what you say or how you say it. Avoid censuring yourself for something you feel or pray.
Try journaling or drawing your prayer.

Prayer =
    1 – recognition of God
    2 – transformation by God
    3 – union with God

Exercise: Try praying each of these four types of prayer—one per day. Most likely you will feel most comfortable with the first two types. Try praying via meditation and then contemplation. See how you and your God like it.