#MastersofSocialIsolation (4) Julian of Norwich, a 14th-cen English mystic, spent half her life as an anchoress, enclosed in a cell attached to her local church. From a small window she could receive food and offer spiritual advice, while from another she could view the altar.
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We know little of her previous life except that she had once prayed that she might fall sick and receive “3 wounds” of contrition, compassion, and longing for God.” This came to pass when she was 30–falling so sick that she received last rites.
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While gazing at a crucifix she experienced a series of revelations of Christ’s sufferings and of the immensity of his love for creation. These visions became a rich fount of theological insight: she saw that we are “soul and body, clad and enclosed in the goodness of God.”
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She recovered and later adopted her vocation as a solitary anchoress. This solitude allowed her the space and freedom to write extended reflections on her visions—a text not known for many centuries—perhaps awaiting an audience that did not yet exist. Perhaps for our own time.
Julian lived during the Black Death and other scourges. Yet her own sufferings generated a deeply hopeful confidence in God’s love—a force more powerful than sin and death. Her most famous line: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
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