Introduction>
Julian’s 1st Showing – part 1>
Julian’s introduction to what is to follow.
These first three chapters outline the whole book:
- first, a summary of the chapters to follow (omitted for brevity).
- second, how when younger, she prayed to share or understand more of Christ’s pains.
- third, her serious illness in 1373, in which, during receipt of the last rites, she received the ‘shewings’ or visions which occupy the rest of the book.
In fact she survived. The last record of her still living was in 1413.
What follows is far more than I originally intended. Two or three years ago I began a free verse précis of her book, promising completion in a few months, then a year. But I found such richness and compassion in her writing that the précis became a fuller translation and the timescale grew.
Although written in English it is that of the early middle ages. Spelling was elastic then, not only from writer to writer but within a writer’s own work, hence it is very much a translation into modern English. Fortunately I did not have to work from the original mediaeval alphabet or, worse, from handwritten originals. This has been done by far better writers than myself, particularly Georgia Ronan Crampton.
I have kept Julian’s chapter introductions in her Middle English wording in italic, but using our modern alphabet. Her book, as mentioned in an earlier post, was written in a dangerous and unforgiving age; a time of post- Black Death fear of heresy. The shewings should be read in order.
Revelations to one who could not read a letter. Anno Domini 1373.
A Particular of the Chapters, Of the tyme of these revelations, and how shee asked three petitions, and Of the sekenese opteyned of God be petition.
Chapter 1.
A Particular of the Chapters. The first chapter, off the noumber of the Revelations particularly.
This is a Revelation of love that Jesus Christ, our endless bliss,
made in sixteen Showings or special Revelations.
I have omitted this chapter’s summary of her sixteen revelations as, in the light of the historical background in which they were written, they are better read in in order.
Chapter 2
The second chapter. Of the tyme of these revelations, and how shee asked three petitions.
These Revelations were shown to a simple unlettered creature in the year of our Lord 1373, the eighth day of May, which creature had desired previously, three gifts of God.
The first was to understand His passion.
The second was bodily sickness in youth at thirty years of age.
The third was to have God’s gift of three wounds.
As to the first gift,
I thought I had some feeling of Christ’s passion,
but desired more by God’s grace,
as though I were there with Mary Magdalen
and others that loved Christ;
desiring an actual sight
to know more of our Saviour’s physical pains,
our Lady’s compassion,
and of all His true lovers that saw them,
in that way I would be one of them
and suffer with Him.
I desired no other sight
nor showing of God
till my soul departed from my body,
so that by this showing alone
I should more truly understand Christ’s passion.
The second gift came to my mind with contrition,
freely desiring a sickness so deathly hard
that I might undergo all rites of Holy Church,
believing I was dying,
and that all that saw me might suppose the same,
for I would get no comfort from earthly life.
In this sickness I prayed to have
all manner of physical and spiritual pains
that I would feel if I were dying,
with all the dreads and tempests of the fiends,
except the outpassing of my soul.
By this I meant to be purged by God’s mercy,
afterward to live more to His worship
because of that sickness;
and that it might speed my death,
for I desired to be soon with my God.
These two desires, the passion and the sickness,
I desired with a condition, saying,
“Lord, you know what I desire.
if it be Thy will, may I have it,
and if it be not Thy will,
good Lord, do not be displeased,
for I want nothing but Thy will.”
For the third gift, by the grace of God and the teaching of Holy Church,
I conceived a mighty desire to receive three wounds in my life:
the wound of full contrition,
the wound of kindred compassion,
and the wound of willfull longing for God.
And all this last petition I asked without any condition.
The first two desires passed from my mind,
but the third dwelt with me continually.
Chapter 3
Of the sekenese opteyned of God be petition. Third chapter.
When I was thirty and a half years old,
God sent me a bodily sickness
in which I lay three days and nights.
On the fourth I had rites of Holy Church
and did not expect to live till day;
but after this I languished
two days and two nights.
The third night I often thought I had passed,
as did they that were with me;
still young, I thought it great pity to die;
not for anything in earth
that might give me pleasure to live,
nor fear of any pain,
for I trusted in God in His mercy.
But to have lived to have loved God better
and for a longer time,
that I might have more knowledge and love
of God in the bliss of Heaven.
For I thought,
the time I had lived here was too slight,
too short to deserve that endless bliss.
It seemed nothing.
I thought,
“Good Lord, may the end of my life be Thy worship?”
And I understood by my reason,
by my feelings of pain,
that I should die,
and assented fully, with all the will of my heart,
to be at God’s mercy.
Thus I endured until day,
and by then my body was dead
with no feeling from the middle down.
Then I was stirred to be set upright,
and was leant back with help,
to have more freedom in my heart
to be at God’s will,
thinking on God while my life might last.
My curate was sent for to be at my end,
by the time he came my eyes were fixed
and I could not speak.
He set the cross before my face and said,
“I have brought the image
of thy maker and Saviour.
Look thereon and have comfort therewith.”
I thought I needed no comfort
for my eyes were set upward to Heaven
where by God’s mercy I trusted to come,
but I assented to set my eyes, if I could,
in the face of the Crucifix
and so I did,
thinking I might endure longer
looking ahead than right up.
After this my sight began to fail,
the chamber dark as night about me
except in the image of the Cross
which I saw by its own light,
I knew not how.
All beside the Cross was ugly to me
as if greatly occupied with fiends.
The rest of my body began to die.
I had scarcely any feeling,
with shortness of wind;
and believed I had truly died.
And in this, suddenly, all my pain was taken from me,
I was as hale, and sound in body as ever before.
I marvelled at this sudden change,
I thought it was God’s secret work
and not of nature,
yet feeling this ease
I trusted no more in living.
This ease was no full ease to me,
for I would rather be delivered from this world.
Then came suddenly to my mind
that I should desire the second wound
of our Lord’s gracious gift,
that my body might be fullfilled
with mind and feeling of His blessed passion,
I wanted His pains my pains with compassion,
and afterward to belong to God.
I desired neither bodily sight nor showing of God,
but compassion,
as a kindred soul might have with our Lord Jesus,
who for love became a mortal man.
I desired to suffer with Him.
Julian’s visions follow approximately monthly, interspersed with other posts.
anthonyinuk 