To read Julian’s Revelations in order, which is far better, begin at the Introduction. She continues here a remarkably interwoven, almost triple-plaited, study of the nature and relationship between the soul and its Creator which she began in chapter 52 .

Chapter 54

We ought to enjoye that God wonyth in our soule and our soule in God, so that atwix God and our soule is nothing, but as it were al God; and how feith is ground of al vertue in our soule be the Holy Gost.

In God’s great endless love for all mankind,
He makes no difference between Christ’s blest soul
and the least soul that shall be saved.

For it is easy to believe and trust
that Christ’s blest soul dwells high and full;
full in the glorious Godhead.
I truly understand that where Christ’s soul is,
is the dwelling and the substance
of every soul He saves.

We should greatly treasure God
dwelling in our soul,
but far more should we treasure,
that our soul dwells in God.

Our soul is made to be God’s dwelling place,
and our soul dwells in uncreated God.
The highest understanding is to see inwardly,
God, our maker, dwelling in our soul.
Yet higher still, to see within, to know
our created soul dwelling in Gods substance,
for in God’s substance we are what we are.

I saw God and our substance undivided,
as though it were all God;
I understood our substance is in God;
God is God,
and our substance is created in God.

Our Father is the Trinity’s almighty truth;
He made us and keeps us in Himself;
our Mother is the Trinity’s deep wisdom
in whom we are enclosed;
our Lord is the Trinity’s high goodness;
we are enclosed in Him and He in us.

We are enclosed in the Father,
we are enclosed in the Son,
and we are enclosed in the Holy Spirit;

The Father is enclosed in us,
the Son is enclosed in us,
the Holy Spirit is enclosed in us,
all Might, all Wisdom, all Goodness:
one God, one Lord. 

Our faith is virtue from our kindred substance
set in our soul by the Holy Spirit
from which all our virtues come;
it is only with true understanding,
true belief and secure trust in our being,
that we are we in God, and God in us,
though we see Him not.

This virtue works great things in us,
with all God has ordained.
Christ’s merciful work is in us,
and our grateful accord to Him,
and the Holy Spirit’s gifts and virtues,
make us Christ’s children, living Christians.

   Chapter 55

Christ is our wey, ledand and presenting us to the Fader; and forwith as the soule is infusid in the body, mercy and grace werkyn. And how the Second Person toke our sensualite to deliver us from duble deth.

So Christ is our way,
leading us securely in His law,
mightily bearing all he shall save,
presenting us in His body,
to His Father in Heaven;
His Father receives us thankfully
giving us courteously to His Son Jesus Christ,
joy to the Father and bliss to the Son,
and pleasing to the Holy Spirit.

In the ninth showing, more was seen of this jewel,
this blissful Trinity of our salvation.
Of all we are, our treasuring it
pleases our Lord most.

In spite of all our feeling, woe or weal,
God wants us to understand in faith
that we are truly more in Heaven than in earth.

Our faith comes of the kindred love in our soul,
the clear light of our reason,
and the steadfast mind we have of God
in our first making.

When our soul is inspired in our body,
in which we are made sensual,
mercy and grace begin to tend us,
keeping us with devotion and love;
the Holy Spirit forming hope in our faith,
that we shall return above to our substance,
in the virtue of Christ, increased and fulfilled.

So sensuality is grounded in kindred,
in mercy, and in grace,
which ground enables us to receive gifts
leading to eternal life.

For I saw fully, surely,
that our substance is in God.
As our sensuality is the dwelling of our soul,
it is also the city of God,
ordained by Him from without beginning,
in which He came, never to depart.

For God never leaves the soul
His eternal blessed dwelling,
as I was shown in the sixteenth vision
“The place that Jesus takes in our soul,
He shall never leave again.

All the gifts that God may give to creatures,
He has given to His Son, Jesus,
which He, dwelling in us,
has enclosed in Himself
until we have grown fully one with Him
our soul with our body,
our body with our soul,
neither lesser than the other, but one,
until we are fully grown in kindred
with mercy working within,
the Holy Spirit graciously inspires in us
gifts leading to eternal life.

So was my understanding led by God,
to see in Him and to understand,
to learn and rest assured,
that our soul is made a trinity –
like the unmade blissful Trinity
known and loved from without beginning
in its making, made one with the Maker.

This was sweet and marvelous to see,
peaceful, restful, secure, delectable;
the worshipful union made by God
between soul and body can only mean
mankind shall be restored from second death;
but this could never be until
the Second Person in the Trinity
had taken the lower part of mankind,
made one with the Highest in its making.

These two parts were in Christ,
higher and lower, one soul;
higher – in peace with God, full joy and bliss
lower – our sensual physical nature,
suffered for the salvation of mankind,
both seen and felt in the first vision
when my body was filled with the feeling
and passion of Christ, and His death.
For then I had a subtle, inner feeling,
a hidden inner sight that I was shown,
when I could not just as well look up
to Heaven for that powerful vision
of the inward life that is that higher substance
endlessly delighting in the Godhead.

Chapter 56

It easier to know God than our soule, for God is to us nerer than that, and therefore if we will have knowing of it, we must seke into God; and He will we desire to have knowledge of kynde, mercy, and grace.

I saw with full certainty
it is easier to come to know God
than to come to know our own soul.
Our soul is so deeply grounded in God,
so endlessly treasured, we cannot know it
without first knowing God its maker
in whom it is one, yet our full desire
must be to to wisely, truly, know our own soul;
thus we are taught to seek it where it is,
and that is in God.

So by the Holy Spirit’s gracious guidance
we shall know them both as one.
whether we are stirred to know God or our soul
they are both good and true.
God is nearer to us than our own soul;
He is the soil in which our soul stands;
He is the medium that binds our substance
and our physical being into Him
never to be parted.

Our soul sits in God in true rest,
our soul stands in God in true strength;
it is rooted in God in endless love
so to know our soul’s true nature,
to commune and dally with it,
we must seek God in whom it is enclosed.

I saw and understood this enclosing more
in the sixteenth showing, as I shall say.

Our substance and our sensuality
may be truly called our soul
by their oneness with our Lord God.
the holy city, the seat of our Lord Jesus
is our sensuality in which He is enclosed.
Our kindred substance is enclosed in Jesus,
with Christ’s blessed soul sat at rest in the Godhead

I saw with certainty that we must be
in longing and in penance until
we are so deeply led into God
that we very truly know our own soul.
Truly I saw that into this high depth
our Lord Himself leads us in that same love
He made us, and by which He bought us
with the mercy and grace of His passion.

Yet for all this we may never know God fully
until we first clearly know our own soul.
We cannot be fully holy without our soul’s full strength,
our sensuality matched to its substance
by Christ through His passion,
with all the benefits of our tribulation
He shall gain for us by mercy and grace.

I had a partial insight; it is grounded in kinship.
Our reason is rooted in God’s substantial, kindred, highness.
Mercy and grace spring from this and spread into us,
working with all things to fulfill our joy.

This is the soil in which we grow and are fulfilled.
For in this kinship we have our life and being;
in mercy and grace we increase and mature.
These are three properties in one goodness,
where one works, all that now belongs to us also works.

God wants us to understand and desire,
with all our heart and strength, to know them
more and more until we are fulfilled.
Knowing and seeing them fully
is the endless joy and bliss
that we shall have in Heaven,
which God wants begun here in knowing His love.

For we cannot profit by reasoning
unless we have a true mind and love;
and can only be saved in God’s kindred soil
if we know the same ground, mercy, and grace.
For by these three working altogether
we receive all our goodness,
of which the first are gifts of kindred.

In our first making God filled us with gifts,
and we may receive greater gifts in spirit.
But in His foreseeing purpose
His endless wisdom would be that we had double.