Julian of Norwich and Other Tibetan Lamas

As Chapter Two begins, Julian explains that “this revelation” was made to her, “a simple creature unlettered,” on May 8, 1373. She further shares that she had “before” longed for three gifts, 1) “mind of the passion”; 2) “bodily sicknes”; and 3) three “wounds”: i. “very contrition,” ii. “kind compassion,” and iii. “wilful longing for God.” ₁ Regarding the first of the gifts, a “mind of the passion,” Julian is practicing her devotion in the lineage of teachings passed down from writers such as Anselm of Canterbury.

In his “Prayer to Christ,” Anselm begins, “Lord Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, my Mercy, and Salvation I praise you and give you thanks.” ₂ Deeply tender and genuine, the prayer reveals the extent to which its author hoped that in the giving of such thanks and praise he could begin to repay the “debt” that he owed to the One who had given so much to him and for him. Believing his own response to be completely inadequate to compensate the abundant generosity of such manifest divine charity, the monk offers it nonetheless. ₃ Yet, the contrast between his love and that of his Savior haunts him, drives him to plead for his love’s transformation and increase:

Most merciful Lord, / turn my lukewarmness into a fervent love for you. / Most gentle Lord, / my prayer tends towards this – / that by remembering and meditating / on the good things you have done / I may be enkindled with your love. ₄

These “good things” to be remembered and meditated upon focus in great measure on the last sufferings and the death that Christ underwent, for love. Thus, Anselm writes:

So, as much as I can, though not as much as I ought, / I am mindful of your passion, / mindful of your buffeting, / mindful of your scourging, / mindful of your cross, / mindful of your wounds, / mindful of how you were slain for me, / of how you were prepared for burial, / of how you were buried … ₅

In the naming of “mind of the passion” as the first “gift” that she desires, Julian acknowledges that she had some degree of feeling for the Passion of Christ, but she “desired to have more.” ₆ She yearns, with Anselm, to have been present at and to witness directly the tragic events of Jesus’ last hours. Anselm had grieved the limitations of time which prevented him from gazing upon the One for whom he longs, “Kindest, gentlest, most serene Lord, / will you not make it up to me for not seeing / the blessed incorruption of your flesh …” ₇ It is for such direct visual touching that Julian also longs. She writes: “Methought I woulde have ben that time with Mary Magdalene and with other that were Christus lovers, that I might have seen bodily the passion that our lord suffered for me …” ₈ In the chapters to follow, the reader will be given a privileged vantage point from which to witness what Julian comes to “see” in her showings. And the word “see,” with all its textures and resonances, will serve as a vital key to what she experiences, how she teaches the meaning of what she experiences, and with what voice she teaches that meaning.

Endnotes

1. “Which creature desired before thre giftes by the grace of God. The first was mind of the passion. The secund was bodily sicknes. The thurde was to have of Godes gifte thre woundes …. the wound of very contrition, the wound of kind compassion, and wound of wilful longing to God.” (Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, Chapter 2, lines 2-4 and 34-35, pages 125 and 129.) Image One below is of TM’s apparent notes on Chapter 2 of Julian’s text. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Paul Pearson, Director of the Bellarmine University’s Thomas Merton Center in Louisville, Kentucky, for making available a scan of these Notes. While a bit challenging to decipher, TM’s summary of the first of Julian’s requested “gifts” is helpfully succinct: “to see the Passion.” The parenthesized words next to this note would seem to be: “+ attain perfect compassion.”
2. Anselm of Canterbury, The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated by Sister Benedicta Ward. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, page 93, ll. 1-3. Latin: “Domine Iesu Christe, redemptio mea, misericordia mea, salus mea: te laudo, tibi gratias ago.” (Anselm of Canterbury, “Oratio ad Christum.” S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia. Volume 3. Ed. F. S. Schmitt. 6 vols. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1946, page 6, lines 4-5.)
3. Anselm prays: “I praise you and give you thanks. / They are far beneath the goodness of your gifts, / which deserve a better return of love; / but although I requite so poorly / the sweet riches of your love / which I have longed to have, / yet my soul will pay its debt / by some sort of praise and thanks, / not as I know I ought, but as I can.” (Anselm of Canterbury, The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated by Sister Benedicta Ward. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, page 93, lines 3-11.) Latin: “Quamvis valde impares tuis beneficiis, quamvis multum expertes dignae devotionis, quamvis nimis macras a desiderata pinguedine dulcissimi tui affectus: tamen qualescumque laudes, qualescumque gratias, non quales scio me debere, sed sicut potest conari, tibi persolvit anima mea.” (Anselm of Canterbury, “Oratio ad Christum.” S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia. Volume 3. Ed. F. S. Schmitt. 6 vols. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1946, page 6, lines 5-9.)
4. Anselm of Canterbury, The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated by Sister Benedicta Ward. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, page 94, lines 35-41. Latin: “Converte, misericordissime, meum teporem in ferventissimum tui amorem. Ad hoc, clementissime, tendit haec oratio mea, haec memoria et meditatio beneficiorum tuorum, ut accendam in me tuum amorem.” (Anselm of Canterbury, “Oratio ad Christum.” S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia. Volume 3. Ed. F. S. Schmitt. 6 vols. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1946, page 7, lines 21-23.)
5. Here I have slightly modified the groundbreaking translation of Sister Benedicta in order to reflect the number of times Anselm repeats the Latin word “memor,” which is here translated as “mindful of.” (Anselm of Canterbury, The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated by Sister Benedicta Ward. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, page 95, lines 62-66.) See Image Two below where the Latin text and English translation appear side by side. The Latin text is taken from Anselm of Canterbury, “Oratio ad Christum.” S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia. Volume 3. Ed. F. S. Schmitt. 6 vols. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1946, page 7, lines 32-35. Mindful focus on the Passion of Christ is a practice referenced frequently in medieval Christian devotional and didactic writings. The early 13^th guide for female anchorites, Ancrene Wisse, offers its readers this advice about responding to times of difficulty and pain: “Ouer alle þouȝtes. in alle oure passions. þenkeþ euere inwardliche vppon godes pynen.” (The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle: The “Vernon” Text. Edited by Arne Zettersten and Bernhard Diensberg. Oxford, U.K.: The Early English Text Society – Oxford University Press, 2000, page 67, lines 27-28.) Modern English: “Above all other thoughts, in all your sufferings always think deeply on God’s sufferings.” (“Ancrene Wisse,” in Anchoritic Spirituality: Ancrene Wisse and Associated Works. Translated and introduced by Anne Savage and Nicholas Watson. New York: Paulist Press, 1991, page 117.) The 14^th century mystic, Richard Rolle, in one of his Meditations, prays: “Here, swet Ihesu, I prey þe to graunt me grace to folow þe in mynd of þy passioun.” (“Meditation B,” in Richard Rolle: Prose and Verse. Edited by S. J. Ogilvie-Thomson. Oxford, U.K.: The Early English Text Society – Oxford University Press, 1988, page 77.) The 14^th century text, “The Privity of the Passion,” directs its readers to meditate on the entirety of Christ’s sufferings: “And ther-for sett thy-selfe, þat es þi mynde, þer-to all holly: and be-holde noghte onely þe payne & crucyfyenge of thy lorde Ihesu whene he was done [placed, put] one the rode [cross] in þe oure of vndrone [midday], bot also fro begynnyng of his blisside passione …” (“The Privity of the Passion,” Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole and His Followers. Edited by C. Horstmann. D.S Brewer, 1985/1999, page 198.) In “The Seven Points of True Love and Everlasting Wisdom,” a Middle English translation of Henry Suso’s (1296-1366)  Horologium Sapientiae, “Wisdom” offers this guidance, “’Þou schalt have alleweye in þine herte þe mynde of myne passione, & alle tribulaciones and aduersitees þat þou suffreste re∣ferre [relate, apply] to hit, & in as miche as hit is possible to þe, þou schalt as hit were cloþe þe with þe likkenesse þer-of.’” (Orologium sapientiae or the seven poyntes of trewe wisdom. Edited by Carl Horstmann. Anglia : zeitschrift für Englische philologie. Vol. 10, p. [323]-389. Halle a. S: Max Niemeyer, 1888, page 343. Retrieved from Corpus of Middle Prose and Verse: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/CME00059/1:1.5?rgn=div2;view=fulltext ) Such devotional practices have been described as a desire “to submerge the self in the details of Christ’s suffering …” (Emphasis mine. Editorial note in Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, page 124.)  
6. “For the first, come to my minde with devotion: methought I had sumdeele feeling in the passion of Christ, but yet I desired to have more, by the grace of God.” (Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, Chapter 2, lines 5-7, page 125.)  While it may not have a direct relation, it is interesting to note that Julian uses the word “feeling’ in relation to her mindfulness of the passion: “sumdeele feeling in the passion of Christ.” The Vulgate translation of the hymn of Christ’s kenosis from the second chapter of the Letter to the Philippians employs the words “hoc enim sentite in vobis quod et in Christo Iesu …” (2.5), which Julian herself renders: “Botte ilke saule, aftere sayinge of Sainte Paule, shulde ‘feele in him that is Criste Jhesu.” (Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, Section 10, lines 22-23, page 83.) See also the Wyclyffe translation the Philippians passage: “And fele ye this thing in you, which also in Crist Jhesu …” (Emphasis mine.)
7. Anselm of Canterbury, The Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm. Translated by Sister Benedicta Ward. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, page 97, lines 124-125. Latin: “Benignissime, suavissime, serenissime: quando restaurabis mihi quia non vidi illam beatam tuae carnis incorruptionem?” (Anselm of Canterbury, “Oratio ad Christum.” S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia. Volume 3. Ed. F. S. Schmitt. 6 vols. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1946, page 8, lines 63-64.)
8. Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, Chapter 2, lines 7-9, pages 125 and 127. (Emphasis mine.)