This was written after seeing a BBC documentary on Julian of Norwich. Although this made arguments that she herself wrote her "Revelations of Divine Love", nothing is certain, and I have kept the older idea that she dictated them to a priest, which makes for a better dynamic in the story. The historical background of Norwich, and the plague and her cell have been researched, and while the extracts from the linking poem (with more modern words) are mine, most of the words spoken by her are taken from her own writings or from the hymn "Like as a Mother God Comforteth His Children" by Maria Louise Baum. While Maria Louise Baum didn’t originally write the text about Julian, liturgy planners have often paired her hymn with Julian’s feast day because the theological themes match so flawlessly. Julian's famous words "All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well" are also placed in the story in context, not as misplaced optimism, but faith in God despite the darkness of the world.
Meditation in Solitude: A Story
There was silence outside her walls. Norwich was a city of silent, deserted markets. The plague had breached the city gates, and two-thirds of the stalls in the bustling market square sat empty. Normal commerce ground to a complete halt as buyers and sellers infected each other and died. Entire streets became vacant. Dilapidated tenements and shuttered shops fell into severe disrepair, creating a ghostly urban landscape that took generations to recover. Death stalked the city, bringing emptiness and silence.
The rain had begun before dawn, a soft patter against the wooden shutter of Julian’s cell. She lay awake, listening to it, letting the sound settle into the silence that had become her closest companion. Solitude was not emptiness to her; it was a vast interior landscape, a place where God’s whisper could be heard more clearly than any human voice.
Solitude, my sweet teacher, my dearest love
Taking apart fabric that I may falsely prove
All certainly falls apart, and a note of pain
Heard in the silence, falling like the rain
So to live without intimacy, and affection
Tears holes in you, but makes connection
By mid‑morning, Alice arrived. She was one of the few permitted to approach the outer door of the anchorhold, carrying food, news, and, on days like this, ink and parchment for the priest who served as Julian’s scribe. Julian heard the faint murmur of their voices outside, then the soft scrape of a stool being placed near the narrow window that opened into her cell.
“Mother Julian,” the priest said gently, “are you ready to continue?”
Julian drew a slow breath. She had no quill, no parchment of her own. Her hands, often weak from illness, were not suited to writing. But her mind was clear, and the visions she had received years before still burned within her like coals that refused to die. She moved closer to the window, the only opening through which she touched the world.
“Yes,” she said. “Let us begin.”
The priest dipped his quill. Julian closed her eyes.
“In the silence,” she said softly, “I heard the suffering of the world crying out. It grows louder, louder still, until it becomes a great shout.”
The quill scratched across parchment.
Julian continued, her voice steady. “We are torn by loneliness, by hunger, by cruelty. Yet in this solitude, God shows me that compassion is not a turning inward, but a reaching outward. The stranger, the poor, the forgotten, these are the reflections of ourselves.”
The suffering of the world heard crying out
Becomes louder, louder still, a great shout
Calls for hope and justice against the cruel
To feed the hungry, not with left-over gruel
But with the bread of life, clean fresh water
An ending to the famine’s endless slaughter
In the city, there were as yet no painted crosses to mark the sick; instead, terror served as the quarantine. When the plague breached a threshold, neighbours simply fled, leaving the infected house to a ghostly silence. Families barricaded themselves inside out of sheer desperation, while outside, the relentless tolling of the parish death bells became the only sign that another household had fallen.
Outside, the rain thickened. Julian felt it as a kind of liturgy, each drop a reminder of the world beyond her stone walls. She imagined the mothers who came to her window seeking comfort, the widowers who asked for prayer, the children who pressed crusts of bread into her hands as offerings. She felt their wounds as her own. She remembered the words spoken to her in her showings – “Jesus feeds us with himself, and, with the most tender courtesy, does it by means of the Blessed Sacrament, the precious food of all true life”. The prayer of our Lord echoed in her thoughts: give us today our daily bread, and the most precious bread of Jesus showed us bread made holy and blessed.
Alice returned briefly, whispering through the outer door. “The widow on King Street asks your prayers. Her son worsens.” The hidden fear was unsaid. That black spots and swellings would appear, the harbingers of the angel of death.
Julian bowed her head. “Tell her she is held in God’s mercy. And give her half my bread.”
Alice nodded and departed.
The priest waited, quill poised. Julian lifted her gaze.
“Our task,” she said, “is to mend the broken world, or die in the trying. For in that labour, we find truth, no lie, no self‑deception. Only love. Like as a mother, God comforts His children. Comfort is hope and courage for endeavour, Comfort is love, whose home abides in peace.”
Our task to mend the broken world, or die
In trying; there alone is truth found, no lie
The sacred path, not inward, seeking self
But looking to the reflections of thyself
The priest hesitated. “Mother Julian… do you truly believe all shall be well, even now?”
Julian smiled, a small, tired smile. “Yes. Not because the world is well, but because God is with us in its wounds. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well, if we answer suffering with mercy and love. . For God wills that we be not carried overly low because of sorrows and temptations that befall us, for it has ever been this way before the coming of miracles. If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.”
The quill moved again, capturing her words.
She remembered from years long ago the ritual of the last rites, when the priest spoke those words spoke of her departure from the world. She first stepped inside her cell, sprinkled the room with holy water by the priest, to be a living tomb.
She looked around her anchorhold, a small, stone room built against the side of the church, with three narrow windows. The door was sealed and she was there to remain until her death, each day to recite prayers, psalms, and the hours of the Virgin Mary.
When the rain finally eased, a thin beam of light slipped through a shutter, touching the stone floor like a blessing. Julian felt the warmth of it, faint but real.
The other, stranger, not forgotten alone
As when self-enlightenment takes throne
But reaching out, with pity, love, sorrow
As others may to us upon the morrow.
“Write this also,” she said. “Solitude teaches us to listen. Compassion teaches us to act. And in the union of the two, we find the path God sets before us. The courteous giver thinks nothing of all her expense and all her trouble because of the joy and delight that she feels at having pleased and comforted the one that she loves.”
The priest finished the page. Julian folded her hands, the silence returning around her like a cloak. Her stone cell was a physical reflection of an inner reality: she was enclosed in her room, just as her soul was enclosed in God's love.
She was alone, yet not alone. Enclosed, yet open to the world’s cry. And through her dictation, her voice travelled farther than her feet ever could.
There was silence outside her walls. Norwich was a city of silent, deserted markets. The plague had breached the city gates, and two-thirds of the stalls in the bustling market square sat empty. Normal commerce ground to a complete halt as buyers and sellers infected each other and died. Entire streets became vacant. Dilapidated tenements and shuttered shops fell into severe disrepair, creating a ghostly urban landscape that took generations to recover. Death stalked the city, bringing emptiness and silence.
The rain had begun before dawn, a soft patter against the wooden shutter of Julian’s cell. She lay awake, listening to it, letting the sound settle into the silence that had become her closest companion. Solitude was not emptiness to her; it was a vast interior landscape, a place where God’s whisper could be heard more clearly than any human voice.
Solitude, my sweet teacher, my dearest love
Taking apart fabric that I may falsely prove
All certainly falls apart, and a note of pain
Heard in the silence, falling like the rain
So to live without intimacy, and affection
Tears holes in you, but makes connection
By mid‑morning, Alice arrived. She was one of the few permitted to approach the outer door of the anchorhold, carrying food, news, and, on days like this, ink and parchment for the priest who served as Julian’s scribe. Julian heard the faint murmur of their voices outside, then the soft scrape of a stool being placed near the narrow window that opened into her cell.
“Mother Julian,” the priest said gently, “are you ready to continue?”
Julian drew a slow breath. She had no quill, no parchment of her own. Her hands, often weak from illness, were not suited to writing. But her mind was clear, and the visions she had received years before still burned within her like coals that refused to die. She moved closer to the window, the only opening through which she touched the world.
“Yes,” she said. “Let us begin.”
The priest dipped his quill. Julian closed her eyes.
“In the silence,” she said softly, “I heard the suffering of the world crying out. It grows louder, louder still, until it becomes a great shout.”
The quill scratched across parchment.
Julian continued, her voice steady. “We are torn by loneliness, by hunger, by cruelty. Yet in this solitude, God shows me that compassion is not a turning inward, but a reaching outward. The stranger, the poor, the forgotten, these are the reflections of ourselves.”
The suffering of the world heard crying out
Becomes louder, louder still, a great shout
Calls for hope and justice against the cruel
To feed the hungry, not with left-over gruel
But with the bread of life, clean fresh water
An ending to the famine’s endless slaughter
In the city, there were as yet no painted crosses to mark the sick; instead, terror served as the quarantine. When the plague breached a threshold, neighbours simply fled, leaving the infected house to a ghostly silence. Families barricaded themselves inside out of sheer desperation, while outside, the relentless tolling of the parish death bells became the only sign that another household had fallen.
Outside, the rain thickened. Julian felt it as a kind of liturgy, each drop a reminder of the world beyond her stone walls. She imagined the mothers who came to her window seeking comfort, the widowers who asked for prayer, the children who pressed crusts of bread into her hands as offerings. She felt their wounds as her own. She remembered the words spoken to her in her showings – “Jesus feeds us with himself, and, with the most tender courtesy, does it by means of the Blessed Sacrament, the precious food of all true life”. The prayer of our Lord echoed in her thoughts: give us today our daily bread, and the most precious bread of Jesus showed us bread made holy and blessed.
Alice returned briefly, whispering through the outer door. “The widow on King Street asks your prayers. Her son worsens.” The hidden fear was unsaid. That black spots and swellings would appear, the harbingers of the angel of death.
Julian bowed her head. “Tell her she is held in God’s mercy. And give her half my bread.”
Alice nodded and departed.
The priest waited, quill poised. Julian lifted her gaze.
“Our task,” she said, “is to mend the broken world, or die in the trying. For in that labour, we find truth, no lie, no self‑deception. Only love. Like as a mother, God comforts His children. Comfort is hope and courage for endeavour, Comfort is love, whose home abides in peace.”
Our task to mend the broken world, or die
In trying; there alone is truth found, no lie
The sacred path, not inward, seeking self
But looking to the reflections of thyself
The priest hesitated. “Mother Julian… do you truly believe all shall be well, even now?”
Julian smiled, a small, tired smile. “Yes. Not because the world is well, but because God is with us in its wounds. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well, if we answer suffering with mercy and love. . For God wills that we be not carried overly low because of sorrows and temptations that befall us, for it has ever been this way before the coming of miracles. If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.”
The quill moved again, capturing her words.
She remembered from years long ago the ritual of the last rites, when the priest spoke those words spoke of her departure from the world. She first stepped inside her cell, sprinkled the room with holy water by the priest, to be a living tomb.
She looked around her anchorhold, a small, stone room built against the side of the church, with three narrow windows. The door was sealed and she was there to remain until her death, each day to recite prayers, psalms, and the hours of the Virgin Mary.
When the rain finally eased, a thin beam of light slipped through a shutter, touching the stone floor like a blessing. Julian felt the warmth of it, faint but real.
The other, stranger, not forgotten alone
As when self-enlightenment takes throne
But reaching out, with pity, love, sorrow
As others may to us upon the morrow.
“Write this also,” she said. “Solitude teaches us to listen. Compassion teaches us to act. And in the union of the two, we find the path God sets before us. The courteous giver thinks nothing of all her expense and all her trouble because of the joy and delight that she feels at having pleased and comforted the one that she loves.”
The priest finished the page. Julian folded her hands, the silence returning around her like a cloak. Her stone cell was a physical reflection of an inner reality: she was enclosed in her room, just as her soul was enclosed in God's love.
She was alone, yet not alone. Enclosed, yet open to the world’s cry. And through her dictation, her voice travelled farther than her feet ever could.
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