Fire in the Dark Ages. Part 4: Julian of Norwich
Medieval Mystics Rising
Part of the series: The Return to the Inner Temple
In a time of plague and death, one woman heard God whisper the most unlikely message: All shall be well. It was 1373, and England was reeling from the Black Death and the Peasants’ Revolt. The world was unraveling, and yet in a small cell attached to St. Julian’s Church in Norwich, a woman named Julian received visions that would become some of the most tender and hope-filled words in Christian mysticism.
Born in 1342, Julian lived through catastrophe and chaos, yet her writings breathe not despair but hope. Secluded as an anchorite, a solitary devoted to prayer, she became a quiet beacon of divine assurance. From that hidden life emerged one of the most profound voices of Christian mysticism. Her book, Revelations of Divine Love, is the earliest known work in English by a woman and stands as a masterpiece of contemplative theology.
Julian’s mystical experience began when, gravely ill at the age of thirty, she received a series of sixteen visions of Christ’s passion and love. These were not cold doctrinal affirmations. They were vivid, emotional encounters with a suffering yet tender Lord. She saw blood, wounds, and pain, but through them, she beheld the burning compassion of a God who desires to be known through love, not fear. One of her most famous visions involved being shown a small object the size of a hazelnut in the palm of her hand. When she asked what it was, the Lord told her, “It is all that is made.” She marveled that it could exist at all, and He replied, “It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it.”
From this encounter, Julian arrived at her central revelation: “God made it, God loves it, God keeps it.” These words anchor a theology that dares to assert divine benevolence even in the midst of suffering. While many preachers of her time emphasized wrath and judgment, Julian spoke of mercy, hope, and the divine desire for union. She wrote with quiet confidence: “The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.”
Julian’s theology was not naïve optimism. She wrestled with the reality of sin and suffering, asking how a good God could allow such pain, but the answer she received was startling in its simplicity: “Sin is behovely,” that is, necessary, “but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” This phrase, endlessly quoted and endlessly misunderstood, does not deny evil but places it within the larger mystery of redemptive love. For Julian, the end of all things is not destruction, but restoration.
Though she lived in obscurity, Julian’s voice has grown louder with time. Her insights into divine intimacy, trust, and union continue to resonate with those disillusioned by fear-based religion. Her cell became her sanctuary, but also her pulpit, from which she offered not fire and brimstone but tenderness and trust. “He did not say, ‘You shall not be tempest-tossed,’” she wrote, “but ‘You shall not be overcome.’”
Julian calls us to a confidence rooted not in circumstance but in divine constancy. Her revelations pull back the veil on a God who is not angry and distant, but near, wounded, and full of compassion. To walk the inward path, in her view, is to rest in this love, to be seen, known, and held by the One who made all things and will make all things new. Her vision reminds us: the inner life is not an escape from suffering, but a place where suffering is transformed into joy through the nearness of God.
At The Furnace, we believe Julian’s message is desperately needed in our own tumultuous time. We live in an age of anxiety, division, and fear. The Church has too often amplified that fear rather than speaking the truth Julian knew: God is love, and His love will have the final word. The inner life is not about escaping the storm. It is about finding the One who holds us steady within it. Julian found Him in her cell. We can find Him in the Inner Room. All shall be well, not because the world is safe, but because God is faithful.
These four mystics (Teresa, Bernard, Hildegard, and Julian) stand as luminous representatives of an entire epoch of sacred interiority. They are the remembered voices, but they do not stand alone. Across medieval Europe, surely a thousand more lived such lives of intimacy with God yet left behind no written record and found no place in the chronicles of men. Their silence was not absence, but hidden depth. Beyond these unnamed guides were the thousands upon thousands of faithful followers who entered the Inner Room and prayed in secret, whose lives were shaped by unseen communion with the divine. The flame they carried was never theirs alone. It was passed hand to hand, heart to heart, across generations. The inner life did not vanish in the noise of empires or the rise of institutions. It remained, quietly burning in those who had eyes to see and ears to hear. Across the centuries, their voices still echo, calling each of us to journey to the temple within, to encounter the living God, to know Him and be known by Him.
This concludes the Fire in the Dark Ages sub-series.
About this sub-series: These four posts explored the lives of medieval mystics who kept the flame of the inner life burning through the centuries. We’re recovering what has been lost and discovering what has always been waiting within.