And then she was commanded by our Lord to go to an anchoress in the same city [Norwich], who was called Dame Julian. And she did so, and revealed to her the grace of compunction which God had put into her soul, of contrition, of sweetness and devotion, of compassion accompanied by holy meditation and exalted contemplation, and very many holy speeches and marks of His love which our Lord spoke to her soul, and many wonderful revelations, which she communicated, to the anchoress to know if there were any fraud in them, for the anchoress was experienced in such things, and knew how to give good advice.
The anchoress, hearing the marvelous goodness of our Lord, devotedly thanked God with all her heart for his visitation, advising this creature to be obedient to the will of our Lord God, and to fulfill with all her power whatever He might put into her soul, if it were not contrary to the honour of God and the betterment of her fellow Christians; for if it were so contrary, then it could not be the prompting of a good spirit but rather of an evil spirit. “The Holy Spirit never inspires anything contrary to the love of God, and if he were to do so He would be contrary to His own self, for He is all love. Also, He inspires a soul to perfect chastity, for those who live chastely are called the temple of the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit makes a soul firm and steadfast in the true Faith and the right belief. And a man who is divided in his soul is always unfirm and unsteadfast in all his ways. A man always in doubt is like to the sea, which is moved and carried about by the wind."
From: The Book of Margery Kempe (Margery visits Julian of Norwich), 1438.
Excerpted from The Medieval Mystics of England, edited with an introduction by Eric Colledge. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961.
Grunt Futtock: Rock & Roll Christian aka Dorothy Chandler Blues (wr. J. Webb) (Link)
The Anchoress (Link)
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