Julian of Norwich and Other Tibetan Lamas

When asked how innovative it was that Anselm combined more “devotional” material, such as prayers, with more “discursive” material, such philosophical arguments, scholar Eileen Sweeney provides additional insight into what TM describes as the “wonderful unity” of prayer and philosophy in Anselm. The professor explains that the “contrasts in Anselm between those two elements comes out more strongly because the nature of his arguments are more austere, more clearly logical” and that his spirituality is “more … emotionally overwrought.” Continuing, she explains that the reader finds “very high highs, and low lows, in terms of what [Anselm] has found as a kind of source of tremendous joy or what he hasn’t quite figured out as sort of making him fall all the way back into the depths.” ₁ The reader of Anselm’s “Prayers” can indeed gain a visceral sense of the “emotionally overwrought” aspects of his writings, as well as the “low lows.” The monk’s “Prayers” contain many moments of gripping tenderness as well as those in which he is crying out from the “depths.” ₂

Three poems written to “St. Mary” present a rich space within which to discern Anselm’s unique contributions. ₃ Marking the watershed character of these prayers – and those he addressed to Christ – scholar Rachel Fulton notes that “[n]othing quite like them survives from the earlier tradition” of which Anselm was a recipient. She further states that “nothing written after them in Latin or the emerging vernaculars of Europe was ever quite as it had been before.” ₄ Each of Anselm’s three prayers to the Mother of God is prefaced with a few words that are intended to provide context for reading the prayer. The words “when the mind is weighed down with heaviness” appear before the first prayer, in which the author confesses this desire: “I long to come before you in my misery, sick with the sickness of vice, in pain from the wounds of crimes …” ₅ “Good lady,” he pleads, “a huge dullness is between you and me.” ₆ Conceiving the nearly unimaginable, he continues, “I am so filthy and stinking that I am afraid you will turn your merciful face from me.” ₇ Nevertheless, he presses on, “So I look to you to convert me, but I am held back by despair, and even my lips are shut against prayer.” ₈ So oppressed by his severe perception of himself and his unforgiving self-judgement, he offers this poignant and longing utterance: “You are blessed above all women, in purity surpassing the angels, in goodness overpassing the saints. Already dying I long to be seen by such kindness …” ₉

In Chapter One of A Revelation, Julian introduces the very human experience of “oftentimes feeling of wele and woe,” which one set of editors translates as “a recurrent sensation of joy in alteration with misery.” ₁₀ The anchorite describes “wele” as “gracious touching and lightning” that is accompanied by a confidence or certainty in “endlesse joy.” ₁₁ But it is clearly the later experience for which she has the greater spiritual concern. She defines “woe” as “temptation by heavenes and irkehede.” ₁₂ The word “temptation” conveys her sense of care and even peril. Her primary worry is that these experiences will cause an individual to separate themselves from the generosity of Divine Love. We can hear this possibility, this tension, in Anselm’s prayer, in that while he longs to turn to the Font of Mercy and yearns to be gazed upon by the Eyes of Compassion, the sheer weight of his feelings of shame and guilt and his severe self-perception create a sense of obstruction between him and the Blessed Mother. Julian is deeply troubled for those in such a spiritual state, and she wants desperately to assure them that, no matter the feelings of alienation, fear, and loneliness they experience in “woe,” they are “kept in love” as surely in such moments as in those of well-being and joy – “wele.”   

Endnotes

1. Peter Adamson. “Eileen Sweeney on Anselm.” History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. Podcast Episode Number 206: https://historyofphilosophy.net/anselm-sweeney (Minutes 6:35-7:05).
2. R.W. Southern writes: “In his Prayers and Meditations Anselm created a new kind of poetry – the poetry of intimate, personal devotion … The carefully constructed form and choice of words convey the heightened emotion of poetry … The form and the emotion cannot be separated. What Anselm attempted was, first of all, to stir up his own sense of horror, compunction, humiliation, and self-abasement at the recollection of his sins, and then to communicate these feelings to the reader, by arranging his words to give them their fullest possible effect.” “Foreward.” The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated and with an introduction by Sister Benedicta Ward, S.L.G. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973, page 9. Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/prayersmeditatio0000anse/page/8/mode/2up
3. Again, R.W. Southern offers insight: “Of all Anselm’s prayers there can be no doubt that the most important and original are those to St. Mary.” (“Foreward.” The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm, Translated and with an introduction by Sister Benedicta Ward, S.L.G., page 12.)
4. Rachel Fulton, From Judgement to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, page 204. Here is a bit more of Professor Fulton’s insights: “Anselm’s prayers to Mary, like those to Christ, were prodigies. Nothing quite like them survives from the earlier tradition of Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon prayer; nothing written after them in Latin or in the emerging vernaculars of Europe was ever quite as it had been before – whether because of the immediate example of the prayers themselves or simply because of the prayers’ intimate partaking of the anxieties and preoccupations of their day, it is impossible to be sure.” (Ibid. 204.).  
5. Anselm of Canterbury, “Prayer to St. Mary (1).” The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated and with an introduction by Sister Benedicta Ward, S.L.G. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973, page 107, ll. 12-14). The Latin version of this prayer can be found in Anselm of Canterbury, “Oratio ad sanctam Mariam cum mens gravatur torpore.” S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia. Volume 3. Ed. F. S. Schmitt. 6 vols. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1946, page 13-14. Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/sanselmicantuari03anse/page/12/mode/2up?view=theater
6. Anselm of Canterbury, “Prayer to St. Mary (1).” The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated by Sister Benedicta Ward, page 107, ll. 20-21. Emphasis mine.
7. Anselm of Canterbury, “Prayer to St. Mary (1).” The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated by Sister Benedicta Ward, page 107, ll. 23-24. Emphasis mine.
8. Anselm of Canterbury, “Prayer to St. Mary (1).” The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated by Sister Benedicta Ward, page 107, ll. 25-27. Emphasis mine.
9. Anselm of Canterbury, “Prayer to St. Mary (1).” The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated by Sister Benedicta Ward, page 108, ll. 40-43. Emphasis mine.
10. Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, Chapter 1, Line 18, page 123. The modern English rendering is that of Professors Watson and Jenkins and appears on page 122 of their edition.
11. Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, Chapter 1, Line 19, page 123. Examples of the word “touching” and its direct relatives offered by the Middle English Dictionary include the Wycliffe Bible’s translation of the wrenching Genesis verse (6.6) wherein God repents having formed humanity on the earth and is “touchid” with sorrow of heart inwardly. It also references an English translation of a meditation entitled “Oleum Effusum,” in which the 14^th century mystic Richard Rolle meditates on the Name of Jesus. Here the mind, “touched” with “the sovereign sweetness,” desires to become hot in the love of the Maker. And the dictionary also cites the kind spiritual guidance of the author of the 14^th century text, The Book of Privy Counsel, about loving and trusting the Lord even when passing through periods of difficulty and desperation. The Lord may well “look up,” the Master explains, perhaps very soon, and again “touche” you with “a more fervent stirring of that same grace than ever you felt before.” “touchen,” Middle English Dictionary: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED46559/track?counter=3&search_id=18611702 Regarding the word “lightnen,” the Dictionary’s examples include a quotation from an English translation of Richard Rolle’s The Fire of Love, where the hermit teaches that love is a “light burden,” not distressing or oppressing, but “lightynand” the one who bears it. Another example comes from Seven Points of Everlasting Wisdom, an English translation from the “Orologium Sapientie” of the German Dominican friar, Henry Suso (1295-1366). Here the “Disciple” sings the praises of the gracious compassion of “Wisdom,” a compassion which sets its heart “so aboute” an afflicted person who is tormented and desolate and lessens the sorrow – and comforts those who are “heuy” and mournful. With the sweet singing of Wisdom, the Disciple exclaims, the spirit which suffers sorrow is “liȝtenyd.” Indeed, that heavenly melody drives away for a time the spirit of sorrow that “disesith the mynde” so that it may be the “liȝter” borne. “lightnen.” Middle English Dictionary: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED25521/track?counter=1&search_id=18721454
12. The Wycliffe Bible uses “heuynesse” to translate the Latin word “tristitia” when, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus returns from his lonely and agonizing prayer on the Mount of Olives to his disciples, only to find them “slepinge for heuynesse.” (Luke 22.45). “hevines,” Middle English Dictionary: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary/MED20719/track?counter=1&search_id=18723750 Another example comes from the above cited, Seven Points of Everlasting Wisdom, where Wisdom speaks of a “disciple,” who, in the earliest moments of his conversion was so “ouerleyde” an excessive sorrow and “vnskil∣fulle heuynesse,” that he had not the will to read, to pray, or to do any good work. (“Orologium Sapientiae or the Seven Poyntes of Trewe Wisdom.” Edited by K. Horstmann. Anglia : zeitschrift für Englische philologie. Vol. 10, p. 323-389. Halle a. S: Max Niemeyer, 1888.) Retrieved from: Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/CME00059/1:1?rgn=div1;view=fulltext In their edition of Julian’s A Revelation, Professors Watson and Jenkins translate “irkehede” as “disgust” (Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins, page 122.) Georgia Ronan Crampton translates the word as “irritation” (The Shewings of Julian of Norwich, Edited by Georgia Ronan Crampton. TEAMS Middle English Texts. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1994, note #15.) Retrieved Online: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/the-shewings-of-julian-of-norwich-part-1 And so, perhaps for the moment, we can gather and combine these insights and understand the word as meaning “irritated disgust.” Julian will use a variation on this word in Chapter 15 where it is again associated with “hevines.” (Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins, ll. 5-6, page 175.)