Chapter 27
The thirteenth Revelation is that our Lord God wil that we have grete regard to all His deds that He hav don in the gret noblyth of al things makyng and of etc; how synne is not knowin but by the peyn. Twenty-seventh chapter.
Then the Lord put in my mind
the longing I had for Him before.
And I saw nothing hindered me but sin,
and so I looked generally at us all.
And thought, if there had been no sin,
we should all have been clean
like our Lord as He made us.
So, before this time, in my folly
I had often wondered why,
in the great foreseeing wisdom of God,
the beginning of sin was not prevented.
For then I thought, all should have been well.
This distress was hard to abandon however;
I made mourning and sorrow of it
without reason and discretion.
But Jesus, in this vision taught me all I need,
and answered:
Sin is necessary,
but all shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well.
In this naked word sin,
our Lord brought to my mind, all our failings,
and the shameful despite and utter contempt He suffered
for us in this life, and in His dying,
for all the pains and passions of all His creatures,
spiritual and and bodily – for we are all despised in part,
and we shall be despised for following our Master Jesus
till we be full cleansed,
that is to say,
until we are fully freed from our mortal flesh
and all our inner failings –
and seeing this, with all the pains that ever were or shall be,
with all these I understand the passion of Christ
as the greatest pain surpassing all.
Yet all this was shown in a touch,
and readily passed into comfort.
For our good Lord would not frighten
my soul by this ugly sight.
But I did not see sin,
for I believe it has no substance
nor any part of being,
nor can it be be known, but by the pain it causes.
Pain, as I see it, is something for a time,
for it purges us and makes us know ourself
and ask mercy.
For our Lord’s passion is comfort to us
against all this, so is His blessed will.
And for the tender love our good Lord has
to all that shall be saved,
He comforts readily and sweetly,
meaning this:
It is true that sin is the cause of all this pain,
but all shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner thing shall be well.
These words were said full tenderly,
showing no manner of blame to me
or to any that shall be saved.
So it were a great unkindness
to blame or wonder at God for my sin,
since He does not blame me for sin.
And in these same words
I saw a marvellous, high secret hid in God,
which He shall make known to us openly in Heaven,
where we shall truly see why He let sin come,
in which sight we shall endlessly delight Him.
Chapter 28
How the children of salvation shal be shakyn in sorowis, but Criste enjoyth wyth compassion; and a remedye agayn tribulation. Twenty-eighth chapter.
Thus I saw how Christ has compassion on us
for the causes of sin.
And just as I was filled before
with pain and compassion for Christ’s passion,
so also in this I was filled in part
with compassion for all my fellow Christians,
for that well, well beloved people that shall be saved.
That is to say, God’s servants, Holy Church,
shall be shaken in sorrows and anguish
and tribulation in this world,
as men shake a cloth in the wind.
To this our Lord answered,
I shall make a great thing of this in Heaven,
of endless worship and everlasting joys.
Ya, so so much I saw that our Lord joyth
of the tribulations of His servants.
With reuth and compassion to ech person that He lovyth to His bliss for to bringen, He levyth upon them something that is no lak in Hys syte, wherby thei are lakid and dispisyd in thys world, scornyd, rapyd, and outcasten.
And this He doith for to lettyn the harme that thei shuld take of the pompe and the veyn glory of this wrechid lif, and mak ther way redy to come to Hevyn, and heynen them in His bliss without end lestyng.
For He seith, I shall al tobreke you for your veyn affections and your vicious pryde, and after that I shal togeder gader you, and make you mylde and meke, clene and holy, by onyng to me.
And than I saw that ech kynde compassion that man hath on his even Cristen with charite, it is Criste in him.
That same nowting that was shewid in His passion, it was shewid ageyn here in this compassion, wherein were two maner of understondyngs in our Lords menyng. The one was the bliss that we arn bowte to, wherin He will be enjoyen.
That other is for comforte in our peyne, for He will that we wettyn that it shal al be turnyd to worshippe and profite be vertue of His passion, and that we wetyn that we suffir not alone, but with Him, and seen Hym our grounde, and that we seen His penys and His nowting passith so fer al that we may suffre that it may not be ful thowte; and the beholdyng of this will save us from gruching and dispeir in the felyng of our peynys.
And if we se sothly that our synne deservyth it, yet His love excusith us, and of His gret curtesye He doith awey al our blame, and He holdyth us with ruth and pite as childer, inocents and unlothfull.
ch. XXIX
Julian could not understand
how the trials of this life give comfort.
how can all be well
after the great hurt of sin?
She was shown Adam’s sin,
falling away from God,
was the truly greatest of sins,
drawing all humanity
away from God.
Yet the loving act of Christ’s compassion
far outweighed it,
out weighing all sin.
Adam: Originally not a name, but from Hebrew: ‘a-am-man’
a creature of the genus Man, originally a species word not gender.
The male was hus-band-man: Husband-man,
bound to the hus or ham, the house or farm, the heavyworking gender of Man.
Woman, from wo-man, Shortened from wife-man, the female of the species Man.
Hus-wife, the lighter weight female, with the care and keeping of the hus or ham.
Living in small hunter-gatherer families, each took the other’s role in emergency.
ch. XXX
Her thirteenth vision was difficult and dangerous.
In those horrific times in which up to a third of humanity died,
fear and suspicion were more infectious than the plague.
Heresy was harshly and fataly punished, the harshest punishment inducing greater penitence,
was thought a merciful alternative to eternal damnation.
It begins a series of visions which show doctrines of damnation, as held by the church of the day,
and by some today, in a completely different light – the light of God’s love for all mankind.
Julian introduces it in this way:
‘He gave me understanding of two parts of truth-
One part; our Saviour and our salvation,
open and clear, fair and light, plenteous,
for all mankind that is of goodwill, and shall be.
In which we are bound to God, drawn and counselled,
taught inwardly by the Holy Spirit,
outwardly by the Holy Church,
in the same grace.
It is our Lord’s will that we direct ourselves to this truth
for the second is hidden from us.
We are to enjoy Him as He enjoys us,
fully, reverently and meekly.
The second part is hid and shut from us,
all except our salvation.
It is private to our Lord.
It is the right of the royal lordship of God
to have His private counsel in peace,
not for us to learn.
Some busy themselves therein greatly.
If we knew how much we would please Him by leaving it,
we would.
The saints in Heaven desire to know
no more than our Lord will show them.
Their desire and love is ruled by His will,
and as we are all alike in God’s sight
we should do likewise.
She devotes the whole chapter to this.
It becomes increasingly plain that she treads a careful path between fears of heresy,
magnified as they were by the horrors of the Black Death and its aftermath,
and her desire to speak faithfully of what she as seen.
ch. XXXI
And thus our good Lord answered
all the questions and doubts that I might make,
saying full comfortably,
“I may make all things well,
I will make all things well,
and I shall make all things well;
and thou shalt see thyself
that all manner of thing shall be well.”
In these words, “I can, I will and I shall”
she understood the three workings
of the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Holy Trinity.
Three persons, one truth.
In the words, “thou shalt see, thyself”
she understood the final uniting of the Trinity with mankind.
In these sayings God wills us to be enclosed In rest and in peace.
Thus the spiritual thirst of Christ for eternal love
shall have an end.
Christ Jesus is both God and Man:
as God, the highest bliss,
without beginning,
without end.
as Jesus, Christ,
in his joy at what he accomplished for us;
we are His bliss, His reward, His worship, His crown.
For all space and time, past, now, and to come,
His longing for us continues until it is fulfilled eternally
at the end of the age.
Pity, concern, compassion and longing
will come to fulfillment at the best time.
Her 12th Sharing Background Contents Her 13th Sharing – part 2
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