Women's Writings on Christian Spirituality

Molly Hand

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9780486321127
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Literary Essays

Modern understanding of the history of Christian spiritual texts is in a state of constant expansion and heightened appreciation, thanks to our growing understanding of women's contributions to the field. This anthology offers an introduction to new readers as well as a source of further study for those already familiar with the subject. Featured writings are as diverse as their historical contexts, but also offer a grasp of the textual and spiritual relationships among the works and their authors.
Divided into three sections corresponding to the medieval period (beginnings to 1500), the early modern period (1500 to 1800), and the modern period (1800 to the present), the selections exemplify each writer's style and voice. Brief prefaces provide a biographical sketch as well as context for each passage. Contributors include Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, Grace Mildmay, Anna Trapnel, Phillis Wheatley, Maria W. Stewart, Simone Weil, Flannery O'Connor, Anne Lamott, and many others.

Julian of Norwich

(1342–c. 1416)

At the age of 30, Dame Julian, as Margery Kempe calls her, had a visionary experience in the midst of serious illness. Her reflections on this experience and additional theological ruminations constitute the substance of her Shewings. After becoming an anchoress (a woman who committed to a pious life of seclusion, usually in a cell adjacent to a church), Julian (who may have been a nun, but was not necessarily) dictated or recorded her revelations. As Shakespeare’s Hamlet would later exclaim, “O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count / myself a king of infinite space . . .” (2.2.248–9), so Julian, in one of the selections below, was shown a mystery of “all that is made” being contained within the space of a hazelnut. Among other remarkable features of Julian’s work, her profoundly optimistic concept of God and her notion of a “homely,” or familiar, loving relationship between herself and the deity that proclaims, “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” have made her work widely read and admired.

Though Julian is easier to understand than Margery, glosses from the source text are provided as notes.

V. How God is to us everything that is gode, tenderly wrappand us; and all thing that is made, in regard to Almighty it is nothing; and how man hath no rest till he nowteth himselfe and all thing for the love of God. The fifth chapter.

In this same time our Lord shewed to me a ghostly sight of His homely¹ loveing. I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us. He is oure clotheing, that for love wrappeth us, halsyth us, and all becloseth us² for tender love, that He may never leeve us, being to us althing that is gode as to myne understondyng. Also in this He shewed a littil thing the quantitye of an hesil nutt³ in the palme of my hand, and it was as round as a balle. I lokid there upon with eye of my understondyng and thowte, What may this be? And it was generally answered thus: It is all that is made. I mervellid how it might lesten,⁴ for methowte it might suddenly have fallen to nowte for littil. And I was answered in my understondyng, It lesteth and ever shall, for God loveth it; and so all thing hath the being⁵ be the love of God.

In this littil thing I saw three properties: the first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God kepith it. But what is to me sothly the maker, the keper, and the lover I canot tell, for till I am substantially onyd⁶ to Him I may never have full rest ne very⁷ blisse; that is to sey, that I be so festined to Him, that there is right nowte that is made betwix my God and me. It needyth us to have knoweing of the littlehede⁸ of creatures and to nowtyn allthing that is made for to love and howe God that is unmade.⁹ For this is the cause why we be not all in ease of herete and soule, for we sekyn¹⁰ here rest in those things that is so littil, wherin is no rest, and know not our God that is almighty, al wise, all gode; for He is the very rest. God will be knowen, and Him liketh¹¹ that we rest in Him. For all that is beneth Him sufficeth not us. And this is the cause why that no soule is restid till it is nowted¹² of all things that is made. Whan¹³ he is willfully nowtid for love, to have Him that is all, then is he abyl to receive ghostly rest.

Also our Lord God shewed that it is full gret plesance to Him that a sily¹⁴ soule come to Him nakidly and pleynly and homely. For this is the kinde yernings¹⁵ of the soule by the touching of the Holy Ghost, as be the understondyng that I have in this sheweing: “God of Thy goodnesse, give me Thyselfe, for Thou art enow¹⁶ to me, and I may nothing aske that is less that may be full worshippe to Thee. And if I aske anything that is lesse, ever me wantith; but only in Thee I have all.” And these words arn¹⁷ full lovesome to the soule, and full nere, touchen the will of God and His goodness. For His goodness comprehendith all His creatures and all His blissid works and overpassith without end. For He is the endleshede, and He hath made us only to Himselfe and restorid us be His blissid passion, and kepith us in His blissid love; and all this is of His goodness.

XXVI. The twelfth Revelation is that the Lord our God is al sovereyn beyng. Twenty-sixth chapter.

And after this our Lorde shewid Hym more gloryfyed, as to my syte, than I saw Him beforne, wherin I was lernyd that our soule shal never have rest til it comith to Hym knowing that He is fulhede of joy, homley and curtesly blisful and very life. Our Lord Jesus oftentymes seyd, I it am, I it am, I it am that is heyest, I it am that thou lovist, I it am that thou lykyst, I it am that thou servist, I it am that thou longyst, I it am that thou desyrist, I it am that thou menyst, I it am that is al, I it am that Holy Church prechyth and teachyth the, I am that shewed me here to thee. The nombre of the words passyth my witte and al my understondyng and al my mights, and it arn the heyest, as to my syte. For therin is comprehendid, I cannot tellyn—but the joy that I saw in the shewyng of them passyth al that herte may willen and soule may desire; and therefore the words be not declaryd here. But every man, after the grace that God gevyth him in understondyng and lovyng receive hem in our Lord’s menyng.

XXVII. The thirteenth Revelation is that our Lord God wil that we have grete regard to all His deds that He hav don in the gret noblyth of al things makyng and of etc; how synne is not knowin but by the peyn. Twenty-seventh chapter.

After this the Lord browte to my mynd the longyng that I had to Hym aforn. And I saw that nothyng letted¹⁸ me but synne, and so I beheld generally in us al. And methowte, if synne had not a ben, we should al a ben clene and like to our Lord as He made us. And thus, in my foly, aforn this tyme, often I wondrid whi by the gret...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• Table of Contents
• Perpetua
• Paula
• Dhuoda of Septimania
• Kassia
• Hildegard of Bingen
• Elisabeth of Schönau
• Beatrijs of Nazareth
• Mechthild of Magdeburg
• Hadewijch of Brabant
• Angela of Foligno
• Gertrude the Great
• Birgitta of Sweden
• Catherine of Siena
• Julian of Norwich
• Christine de Pisan
• Margery Kempe
• Teresa of Avila
• Grace Mildmay
• Mary Sidney Herbert
• Aemilia Lanyer
• Eleanor Davies
• Anne Bradstreet
• Margaret Fell Fox
• Katharine Evans
• Mary Cary
• Anna Trapnel
• Phillis Wheatley
• Jarena Lee
• Maria W. Stewart
• Emily Dickinson
• Therèse of Lisieux
• Simone Weil
• Flannery O’Connor
• Nancy Mairs
• Anne Lamott
• Heidi Neumark
• Acknowledgments