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All Shall Be Well: Revelations of Divine Love

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This new edition of Julian of Norwich's Revelations pays tribute to Julian's belief that her writings be in a language people can read and understand. Ellyn Sanna's new translation in modern English is a gift to those of us who love Julian's Showings, but did not like slogging through the previous translations that kept in tact most of the Middle English the book was originally written in. You can see a huge difference in the opening two paragraphs:

"THIS is a Revelation of Love that Jesus Christ, our endless bliss, made in Sixteen Shewings,or Revelations particular.

Of the which the First is of His precious crowning with thorns; and therewith was comprehended and specified the Trinity, with the Incarnation, and unity betwixt God and man's soul; with many fair shewings of endless wisdom and teachings of love: in which all the Shewings that follow be grounded and oned."

Here is Sanna's updated language:

"This is a revelation of love that Jesus Christ, our endless joy, made in sixteen showings (sixteen particular and unique revelations).

The first of these showed me that His crown of thorns was precious and valuable, and along with this image came a unique understanding of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the unity that exists between God and human beings. This showing and all the others that followed contained many lovely perspectives and lessons on God's wisdom and love; all sixteen showings are grounded and unified by this same viewpoint."

Sanna also takes words that no longer have the meaning they carried in Julian's time and replaces them with the equivalent in today's English. The big word she replaces is passion. The Passion of Christ refers to the suffering, torture and death of Christ on Good Friday. Today passion no longer means long-suffering and enduring through trial. Sanna replaces suffering with endurance, which carries for us the same meaning passion carried with Julian. The thing I like the most about this updated translation is when Julian speaks of Godde or Jesus as Mother, Sanna uses the pronoun "she." In the original text Julien speaks of Godde's and Jesus' motherhood using "he," but I think "she" adds consistency and gives the modern reader the same shock that Godde and Mother gave Julien's original readers.

I am a great lover of Julian because she first showed me it was OK to call Godde Mother. I resisted calling Godde Mother even when I experienced her as that. When I discovered Julian's writing and discovered both Godde and Jesus referred to as Mother since the 14th Century, my resistance melted. I later discovered medieval writers often referred to both Godde and Jesus as Mother, and this terminology was nothing new. Here are two of Julian's Mother passages from Divine Revelations. The first describes the Trinity using both Father and Mother language, and the second describes Christ as Mother.

"Our High Father, God All-Strong who is Being, knew and loved us before time existed. This Divine knowledge, alongside a deep and amazing love, chose with the foreknowledge of the Trinity the Second person to become Mother. This was our Father's intention; our Mother brought it about; and our Protector the Holy Spirit made it firm and real. For this reason we love our God in whom we have our being. We thank and praise our Father for our creation; we pray with our entire intellects to our Mother for mercy and understanding; and we ask our Protector the Holy Spirit for help and grace."

* * * * *

"Our Mother by nature, our Mother by grace, wanted to become our Mother in all things, and so Christ planted the seeds of Divine action in the humble and gentle soil of the Maiden's womb. (Christ showed me this in the first showing, where I saw how humble this girl Mary was when she conceived the Divine.) In other words, the High God, Sovereign Wisdom, put on flesh and mothered us in all things.

...The word "mother" is so sweet and intimate that it cannot truly be used to describe anyone except Christ. Motherhood is the essence of natural love, wisdom, knowledge-and motherhood is God. God is as much in the physical process of labor and delivery as God is in the process of our spiritual birth."

This new translation of Julian's Revelations is both a wonderful resource and devotional reading to have on your shelves. Now there is a translation for modern people which follows Julian's true intent: that anybody be able to read her words and experience Godde's love and grace for themselves. I love this new edition, and it will be sitting on my shelves for years to come.

This book changed the way I think about God and Christianity. I had read Julian of Norwich before, but this book's modern language made her true meanings strike me afresh. Her concept of Christ's connection to humanity, a permanent part of both His and our identity, our very nature, has made me look at the Incarnation in an entirely new way. This is an amazing and wonderful book.

Julian of Norwich never ceases to amaze me, and her book was the one what first nudged me to take a new look at Christianity in light of her mystical experiences. I've read through her work several times in various editions and versions, and thought I knew it inside and out. I confess, however, that this version took me by surprise and sent me back to my original tattered copies for comparison. The editor found meanings there I had missed or never suspected. Sometimes I was resistant to accepting these new meanings, but every time, as I studied Dame Julian's original words, I came to the conclusion that Sanna had once again hit the nail on the head. She cracks open the old language in startling new ways, revealing Julian's deepest yet most simple meanings. I see I keep coming back to the same thought: surprised...amazed...startled. And ultimately tremendously grateful for and excited about this fresh new look at an ancient book that reassures that God is ultimately, simply Love.

For a shorter, quicker look at the same work, I also recommend the same publisher's Hazelnuts of Grace: Selections from Julian of Norwich, which does a lovely job of arranging Julian's thoughts thematically, using the same fresh language that's in the longer work.