Julian of Norwich and Other Tibetan Lamas

After Julian is repositioned as she requested, so that her heart might be more open and available to meditate on God, she is visited by a priest:

My curate was sent for to be at my ending, and by then he cam I had set up my eyen and might not speake. He set the cross before my face, and said: ‘I have brought thee the image of thy saviour. Looke thereupon and comfort thee therwith.’ Methought I was well, for my eyen were set uprightward into heaven, where I trusted to come by the mercy of God. But nevertheless I ascented to set my eyen in the face of the crucifixe, if I might, so I dide, for methought I might longar dure to looke evenforth then right up. ₁

It was mentioned above how in his teaching Richard Rolle referenced directing one’s spiritual vision toward heaven: “þat þe egh of þi hert be ay vpwarde” and “þat þe egh of þi hert mai loke in til heuen.” In his reflection on contemplation, Richard affirms that “[c]ontemplacyoune es a sygth” and that those who practice contemplation “se in til heeuen with þaire gastly egthe.” ₂ Such language is a helpful framework through which to read and understand the struggle that Julian reports in the quotation above. She states that by the time her priest arrives, she had already “set up” her eyes, directed them upwards. However, the priest directs Julian to redirect her eyes to the crucifix which he places directly in front of her. Julian then states that she thought that she was “well” because her eyes “were set uprightward into heaven,” but, she acknowledges, “I ascented to set my eyes in the face of the crucifixe.” And she does this, looking “evenforth” [straight forward] rather than “right up.”

In an article entitled, “Opening the Inner Doors: Richard Rolle and the Space of the Soul,” scholar Christopher Roman observes:

For Rolle, the eye of the heart within the contemplative is a kind of locus for sight and a way that the contemplative discovers his inner soul, affording a view of heaven itself. The ‘eye of the heart’ is an essential element of the contemplative’s discovery of the space of the soul …. As the eye of the heart is opened, it is important to emphasize that this is a heart that sees from within …. Contemplation is a kind of seeing: ‘contemplacious es a sight, and þai se intil heven with þar gastly egh.’ This image has a complex spatiality: contemplative sight comes from within, and it is only from within that the contemplative will see heaven. Rolle describes how the contemplatives must open themselves into order to see outwardly. When they have finally reached the point of greatest contemplation, they are able to see with a spiritual sight into that which was most hidden from them. ₃

The details of Julian’s bodily repositioning and the orientation of her heart are the practices of a contemplative seeking to maximize her attentive spiritual openness at a moment in which she believes herself to be about to transition, by the mercy of God, beyond the veil of this world to the endless bliss of heaven. These details in Julian’s account resonate with the teachings on contemplative meditation of Richard Rolle, and they provide a foundation – and an originating context – for the visions she will recount and interpret in the remainder of A Revelation. The priest’s intervention might seem to interrupt Julian’s contemplative practice in its directive to look not upward to heaven but straight ahead at image of the Crucified. However, that reorienting directive provides the final contemplative gesture needed to trigger a process through which Julian’s ordinary vision is transformed – and the inner doors of spiritual vision begin to open:

I ascented to set my eyen in the face of the crucifixe … to looke evenforth then right up … After this my sight began to faile, and it was alle darke aboute me in the chamber as if it had been night, save in the image of the cross, wherein held a common light, and I wiste not how. ₄

Endnotes

1. 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 17-23, page 133.
2. For fuller quotations and citations, see the above reflection, “To Have the More Freedom of My Heart.”
3. Christopher Roman, “Opening the Inner Doors: Richard Rolle and the Space of the Soul.” Mystics Quarterly, 32, no. 3/4 (2006), page 21.
4. 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 22-26, page 133. Later, in Chapter 19, Julian will be tempted to “[l]oke uppe to heven,” but she firmly resists this possibility, affirming to Jesus: “Nay, I may not! For thou art my heven.” (Julian of Norwich, The Writings of Julian of Norwich, Eds, Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins. University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, Chapter 19, lines 1-8, page 187).