She lived through two devastating plagues-one that killed 75 percent of the population of Norwich when she was a child and a second that killed 75 percent of the children there when she was a young woman of childbearing age. The outlines of Julian’s life are all that anyone really knows about her. We cite her in search of personal spirituality and often use her for spiritual comfort, but less often do we allow her ideas and her unique approach to the spiritual questions of her day to penetrate our theological understanding. Since her writings were rediscovered for a broader audience, she’s often been seen more as a spiritual curiosity than as a theologian whose thought deeply influences the tradition. Julian’s on the east coast of England and spent the second half of her long life writing two versions of the same book: A Revelation of Divine Love. Welcome to the 650th anniversary of the visions of Julian of Norwich, the woman who lived in an anchor-hold at St. It’s rough to be a theologian of incredible insight and depth who is essentially forgotten or ignored for the first 550 years of your existence and then turned into a cliché for the last 100.
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