Julian of Norwich: Listener Questions

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Jim Finley (0:08)

Greetings, I'm Jim Finley.

Kirsten Oates (0:11)

And I'm Kirsten Oates.

Jim Finley (0:13)

Welcome to Turning to the Mystics.

Kirsten Oates (0:22)

Welcome, everyone, to Turning to the Mystics.

In today's episode, we're going to be turning to the listener questions that have come in in response to season six on Julian of Norwich. And I'm here with Jim. And Jim, we've had just some lovely questions come through for this season. It's good to be with you.

Jim Finley (0:44)

Yes, I was, two things. One, I was really moved by the depth and sincerity of the questions.

And also, it's very much, they're path questions. They're the kind of questions that seekers ask.

And I think that's, you know, that's what these, the teachings of these mystics are trying to open up these very questions within ourself and how to live by them and so on. So just, yeah, some lovely questions. Yes, beautiful. And we can only do a representative sample. You know, we're gonna do a selection that's representative of the caliber, of the questions that are also good. We could go on and on with it actually, with each one. So very nice.

Kirsten Oates (1:25)

Yes, absolutely. I think we both said we could take any one of the questions and do a whole episode on them. They're so beautiful. Yeah, and so I did just wanna thank everyone who sent in a question. I was, it's just an honor and a privilege to get to read them and I feel very touched by the stories and I'm looking forward to your responses today, Jim. So we get started? Okay, so the first one is from Bonnie and she says, would you comment on the shocking and vivid imagery of Julian's writings describing the passion, the intended effect upon the reader?

I have difficulty reconciling these descriptions with her beautiful poetic message throughout the book.

I have tried to read her works through but become discouraged and disconcerted when I encounter such emotional language.

Jim Finley (2:21)

Well, in part, her kind of graphic description of the intensity of suffering is part of a cultural, historical spirit of the age she lived in. This kind of devotional love for love, Jesus crucified and the cross, so she's part of her own cultural setting. That's where part of it comes from.

The other part of it comes from the fact that in her near-death experience that she had where the priest held up the crucifix, is where she had her mystical awakening.

And another part of it is to consider that her language of the suffering is shocking because it reminds us the crucifixion was shocking. It was extremely violent and brutal. So any attempt, we don't like to hear that or that bothers me, it should bother us. And because it's so deeply bothersome, it was so cruel. The next thing is, is that her whole insight is that the intense imagery of Jesus' suffering is actually the infinite love of God incarnate in Jesus, merging with and identified with our anguish. And so the cruelty in Jesus is the cruelty inflicted on all of us. And Jesus owns it. Jesus takes it on greater love than this is known that he lays down his life for his friends. So paradoxically, out of the very bitterness of the cross, we find that there's a love, one with us in the bitterness itself, which is the experience of experiential salvation. And lastly, I would think, you know, that by their fruit you shall know them.

And she's sitting in her hermitage and some of those eloquent, beautiful things that she says out of that. So it's almost similar to the light of the resurrection, unexpectedly shining out of the death of Jesus. And it's that love. And how often sometimes some of our graces that bless us to this day came to us in moments of darkness or pain, or moments of in the darkness itself, we found something we never would have found otherwise about frailty and God's mercy and so on. But it is, she's so unique that way, the strange mixture of these two things, just part of her own path and what she was called to do.

Kirsten Oates (5:08)

So this reconciling of the shocking and vivid imagery describing the passion to the beautiful poetry, you're saying actually just like the Cross, the vision of the Cross, which has both. Yeah, the suffering and the love and the beauty incorporated.

Jim Finley (5:29)

See, I think the mysterious place for her, too, is what is the point at which the suffering within and beyond ourself is touched by the presence of God?