Chapter 1: A Revelation of Love--in Sixteen Showings
"A Revelation of Love--in Sixteen Showings"
THIS is a Revelation of Love that Jesus Christ, our endless bliss, made in Sixteen Showings, or Revelations particular.
Of the which the First is of His precious crowning with thorns; and therewith was comprehended and specified the Trinity, with the Incarnation, and unity betwixt God and man's soul; with many fair showings of endless wisdom and teachings of love: in which all the Showings that follow be grounded and oned.
The Second is the changing of colour of His fair face in token of His precious Passion.
The Third is that our Lord God, Allmighty Wisdom, All-Love, right as verily as He has made everything that is, all-so verily He doeth and works all-thing that is done.
The Fourth is the scourging of His tender body, with plenteous shedding of His blood.
The Fifth is that the Fiend is overcome by the precious Passion of Christ.
The Sixth is the honorable thanking by our Lord God in which He rewardeth His blessed servants in Heaven.
The Seventh is [our] often feeling of weal and woe; (the feeling of weal is gracious touching and lightening, with true assuredness of endless joy; the feeling of woe is temptation by heaviness and irksomeness of our fleshly living;) with ghostly understanding that we are kept all as securely in Love in woe as in weal, by the Goodness of God.
The Eighth is of the last pains of Christ, and His cruel dying.
The Ninth is of the pleasing which is in the Blissful Trinity by the hard Passion of Christ and His rueful dying: in which joy and pleasing He wills that we be solaced and mirthed with Him, till when we come to the fulness in Heaven.
The Tenth is, our Lord Jesus shows in love His blissful heart even cloven in two, rejoicing.
The Eleventh is an high ghostly Showing of His precious Mother.
The Twelfth is that our Lord is most worthy Being.
The Thirteenth is that our Lord God wills we have great regard to all the deeds that He has done: in the great nobleness of the making of all things; and the excellency of man's making, which is above all his works; and the precious Amends that He has made for man's sin, turning all our blame into endless worship. In which Showing also our Lord says: Behold and see! For by the same Might, Wisdom, and Goodness that I have done all this, by the same Might, Wisdom, and Goodness I shall
make well all that is not well; and you shall see it. And in this He wills that we keep us in the Faith and truth of Holy Church, not desiring to see into His secret things now, save as it belongs to us in this life.
The Fourteenth is that our Lord is the Ground of our Prayer. Herein were seen two properties: the one is rightful prayer, the other is steadfast trust; which He wills should both be alike large; and thus our prayer pleases Him and He of His Goodness fulfilleth it.
The Fifteenth is that we shall suddenly be taken from all our pain and from all our woe, and of His Goodness we shall come up above, where we shall have our Lord Jesus for our meed and be fulfilled with joy and bliss in Heaven.
The Sixteenth is that the Blissful Trinity, our Maker, in Christ Jesus our Saviour, endlessly dwells in our soul, worshipfully ruling and protecting all things, us mightily and wisely saving and keeping, for love; and we shall not be overcome of our Enemy.
made one, united.
precious, honoured.
honour-bestowing.
made glad.
MS. "Asseth" = Satisfaction, making-enough.
honour, glory.
Footnotes
1 Julian of Norwich (1342–c.1416) was an English anchoress and mystic whose Revelations of Divine Love is the earliest surviving book written in English by a woman. In May 1373, at the age of thirty, Julian received sixteen visions ("showings") of Christ's love during a severe illness. She spent the next twenty years meditating on their meaning, producing first a short text and then this longer version — a profound and joyful theology of divine love. Her most famous words — "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well" — have comforted believers for six centuries.
2 This translation is by Grace Warrack (1901), which preserves much of Julian's distinctive voice while making her accessible to modern readers. Julian writes with an intimacy and warmth that is remarkable for any century — she calls Jesus "our courteous Lord" and speaks of God's love with the tenderness of a mother for her child.