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July 12, 2018
Liz Dossa
“An Explorer’s Guide to Julian of Norwich (Explorer’s Guides)” by Veronica Mary Rolf. InterVarsity Press (Downers Grove, Illinois, 2018). 240 pp., $18.
Author and scholar Veronica Mary Rolf delights in her subject, Julian of Norwich, the medieval mystic who was an anchoress enclosed for 25 years. Rolf’s just published book, “An Explorer’s Guide to Julian of Norwich,” brings us into the world of a woman who counsels us not just to love God, but “to clothe ourselves in the love of God.” Julian is deeply personal. She is both down-to-earth and mystical, and fascinating to so many. Her “Revelations of Divine Love,” written in both a Short and Long Text from the 1370s to her death in about 1416, is also the first book in English by a woman.
A medieval woman who was considered “unlettered” because she didn’t read Latin, Julian has caught the imagination of a wide public that longs for a personal relationship with God. Most of us know her from the quotation “All Shall be Well,” which appears on bookmarks and posters. A Google search brings up meditations, daily readings, statues and novels about Julian. “I fully expect an app on your phone,” said Rolf. But concerned that it might be her strangeness that attracts the public to Julian, Rolf wants us to know her, understand her mystical theology, and let her move us to intimate faith, not just fascination.
Rolf has both a scholarly and a personal knowledge of the 14th-century mystic. Julian has been in her life since high school. She spent years researching her previous book, “Julian’s Gospel: Illuminating the Life & Revelations of Julian of Norwich.” “When I first read Julian 40 years ago, it was the first time I heard the Gospel in a woman’s voice,” said Rolf.
“But Julian has become a bit of celebrity,” she said. “I’m trying to get to the real Julian in my book. Until you have studied the whole of her writings, she could be misinterpreted or too easily modernized.”
Rolf wrote “The Guide” at the invitation of her publisher, InterVarsity Academic Press, to lead a young audience to understand Julian’s life and to put her writings in a historical and theological context. “The Guide” is also excellent for readers of every age who want to begin a companionship with Julian. This extraordinary woman lived during the Hundred Years War and survived the Great Plague, which devastated Julian’s community and probably her family as well. When she was near death at the age of 30, she experienced visions of Christ on the cross that answered her burning questions about sin, suffering and salvation. She meditated on and wrote about these “Revelations,” seeking understanding for the rest of her life.
Rolf herself is a guide who knows so much about her subject that she can explain it simply. She answers basic questions about Julian: What is an anchorage? Was Julian a wife and mother? What is the significance of the hazelnut? How did Julian gain her theological knowledge?
The heart of the book is Rolf’s comments on each of the “Revelations of Divine Love.” She explains each one for the impact it can have on our faith, choosing specific passages to highlight that she calls “Julian’s Gems.”
Although Julian focuses on God’s powerful and all-embracing love, Rolf is insistent that Julian is not a simple, happy saint who always sees only the bright side of life. “She was not your little dancing flower. She had been through the worst of human suffering and she understood that Christ on the cross transforms all of it.”
“Julian realizes that Christ is in the ditch of life with us,” Rolf said. “He is not judging us. There is no wrath or blame; there is only compassion for the suffering we undergo for our mistakes – personal, familial, communal or global. He is not ‘sending’ suffering. Julian’s message to our age is that God is unconditionally loving and merciful.”
Rolf focuses on how the mystical dimension can illuminate our faith, if we allow it to do so. As a longtime teacher of Christian meditation, her mission is to bring the mystical experience into our lives today through the practice of contemplative prayer. Rolf even offers a chapter on making a retreat with Julian’s “Revelations.”
As she begins the explanation of the “Revelations,” Rolf links them to the present. “If we examine our lives carefully, we may realize that we have had spiritual experiences of our own, revelations or sudden insights we cannot explain … These encounters with God … become powerful sources of strength in hard times – that is, if we remember them.”
“Julian’s message is one of confirmation and affirmation. That is why she is so relevant to our times.”
Women have joined men on the mystical path for centuries, but now is a time particularly in need of a woman’s perspective. Julian’s voice speaks to us across 600 years. It is a voice we need to hear.
Liz Dossa is communications director for the Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Community. Her email is edossa@mercywmw.org.
Mercy Center author retreat
Mercy Center offers “Women on the Mystical Path”: a retreat with Veronica Mary Rolf and her daughter, Eva Natanya, Aug. 4-5. The leaders will bring powerful contemplative practices of the mystics to bear on our daily lives. Contemplation can transform us, widening our compassion, deepening our personal relationships. Eva has studied meditation, yoga, and contemplative philosophy in both the Christian and Buddhist traditions. She has an M.A. in Christian Systematic Theology from the Graduate Theological Union and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. This will be an inspiring retreat for women and their daughters, as well as for women friends who share a spiritual path.