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| Pablo Picasso - Crucifixion (1932) |
Bible Reading - John 15.9-17
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Reflection
The Bishop of London joined us on Ash Wednesday, marking our foreheads with the cross as a sign of mortality and penitence in a part of the service we call the Imposition of Ashes – a name which today seems to imply some sort of unwelcome duty or burden. Perhaps this implication isn’t surprising; remembering we are but dust and to dust we will return is not exactly a notion that most of us choose to dwell on. This is despite being told time and time again in the scriptures that it is in our weakness and when we are at our most vulnerable - when the light shines through the cracks – that we taste that ‘lasting fruit’ from our Gospel reading; it is at these times we find we are closest to God’s love.
Pope Francis has said that the cross is a sign of God’s love for humankind, not to be treated as some kind of logo or fashion accessory. Through the image of Christ crucified he says, the mystery of Jesus’s death as a “supreme act of love, source of life and salvation for humanity in every age is revealed.”
Pope Francis has said that the cross is a sign of God’s love for humankind, not to be treated as some kind of logo or fashion accessory. Through the image of Christ crucified he says, the mystery of Jesus’s death as a “supreme act of love, source of life and salvation for humanity in every age is revealed.”
In the Middle Ages, it was not uncommon for Christians to long to feel the suffering of Christ on the cross. In her youth, the woman we know as Julian of Norwich did just that. She pleaded with God to understand the Passion of Jesus, to suffer physically and to be given three wounds from God (the wound of true sorrow for sin, the wound of natural compassion and the wound of unshakable longing for God). On 8th May 1373, her prayers were answered. Sick to the point of death, her parish priest was called for and held a crucifix in front of her eyes. It is while focussing on the cross that Julian experienced sixteen ‘showings’ – mystical revelations of Christ’s suffering in graphic detail – an event which transformed her life. She recovered and spent the rest of her life living in solitude as an anchorite, seeking to understand what she had seen. Her wisdom is recorded in a book we call the ‘Revelations of Divine Love’ the first book we know of written in English by a woman.
Little is known about Julian’s life – even her name is a mystery; St Julian is the name of the church in Norwich to which her anchorage was attached. We do not know if she was educated or whether she had a family, but we do know she lived at a time of great uncertainty. As a child she survived the Black Death, which claimed the lives of half of the population of Norwich within three years; priests and people often buried in mass graves without the last rites. Civic life was dominated by war with France, the financing of which through harsh taxation triggered the Peasants’ Revolt. The church was also in disarray – The Great Schism saw two popes (and for a time three) claiming authority – fear of revolt and rebellion amongst the faithful culminated in the Archbishop of Canterbury issuing the ‘Arundel Constitutions’ which sought to restrict the laity’s pursuit for knowledge by setting down the maximum they may hear, read or even discuss. In this context, a time when only priests received the chalice at the Eucharist, to discuss (let alone write about) personal visions of the blood of Christ, as Julian did, was dangerous.
Julian’s visions were radical. Not just because she was a lay person. Not just because she was a woman. Not just because she wrote not in the language of scholars or nobility but in the language of the ordinary people. But because in her visions she saw, through the blood of Christ, not God’s judgement on humanity but His abiding love.
Julian’s visions were radical. Not just because she was a lay person. Not just because she was a woman. Not just because she wrote not in the language of scholars or nobility but in the language of the ordinary people. But because in her visions she saw, through the blood of Christ, not God’s judgement on humanity but His abiding love.
In her Lent book, Dr Jane Williams holds up Julian’s life as a reflection of the merciful humility of God. Lost for centuries, through her ‘Revelations of Divine Love’ rediscovered in 1901, we can taste the “fruit that will last.” In Julian, through her ‘showings,’ her life as an anchoress and the risks she took through her writings, we glimpse Jesus in the wilderness – rejecting safety, power and self-promotion – all for the love of God.
Julian isn’t some sort of medieval Polyanna; naieve and blinkered by love – but through the tumultuous world around her, through her personal pain and suffering, she knew that all shall be well – because she had experienced God’s abiding love.
Before a time of prayer, let us reflect on the final words of Julian, from her Revelations of Divine Love;
“I desired often to know what our Lord's meaning was. And fifteen years and more afterward I was answered in my spiritual understanding, thus: ‘Would you know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Keep yourself therein and you shall know and understand more in the same. But you shall never know nor understand any other thing, forever.”
Prayers
As we pray we use a response taken from a prayer of Julian of Norwich. The response to :
In you, Father almighty, we have our preservation and our bliss is : In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
In you, Father almighty, we have our preservation and our bliss is : In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
In you, Father almighty, we have our preservation and our bliss.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
Lord, we thank you for the wisdom of Julian of Norwich, whose shewings reveal the lasting fruits of your love.
May we remember each day that we are beloved.
Help us to see the world not through eyes of judgement
But through a vision of your abiding love.
In you, Father almighty, we have our preservation and our bliss.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
In you, Father almighty, we have our preservation and our bliss.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
We pray especially for our government and all in positions of responsibility.
May your love guide them.
May we all learn to love our lives not driven by a desire for power and control but by generosity and freedom.
In you, Father almighty, we have our preservation and our bliss.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
Lord, you are with us in our suffering.
We know that it is in our weakness and at our most vulnerable that we are closest to you.
Help us to look truth in the face and see the face of your Son on the cross.
In you, Father almighty, we have our preservation and our bliss.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
You are our mother, brother, and Saviour. In you, our Lord the Holy Spirit, is marvellous and plenteous grace.
You are our clothing; for love you wrap us and embrace us.
You are our maker, our lover, our keeper.
Teach us to believe that by your grace all shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well.
In you, Father almighty, we have our preservation and our bliss.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.
Blessing
May the love of the Lord Jesus
draw us to himself;
May the power of the Lord Jesus
strengthen us in his service;
May the joy of the Lord Jesus
fill our souls.
May the blessing of God almighty,
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,
be amongst you
and remain with you
always.
Thank you for joining us for Start Stop today. Please take away the service sheet which has dates of forthcoming services and events taking place here. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. The next reflection will begin in a few minutes.
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