Trinity Sunday
“I beheld the working of all the blessed Trinity, and in this beholding I saw and understood these three properties: the property of fatherhood, the property of motherhood, and the property of the Lordship in one God. In our Father almighty we have our keeping
and our bliss as regards our human substance, which is ours by our making without beginning. And in the Second Person, in wit and wisdom, we have our keeping as regards our sensuality, our restoring, and our saving: for he is our Mother, Brother, and Saviour. And in our good Lord the Holy Spirit we have our rewarding and our recompense for our living and our labors which will far exceed anything we can desire, owing to his marvelous courtesy and his high plenteous grace.
For our whole life is in three. In the first we have our being, and in the second we have our increasing, and in the third we have our fulfilling. The first is kind, the second is mercy, and the third is grace.”
[Julian of Norwich: Revelation of Love] pg. 129
18 May 2008 gabrielle
Whew.. those are paragraphs so deep that I did or would now skip over, having no real clue of what she was saying. If you would like to translate that with examples I might understand, I’d gladly send you a very Russell Stover box of chocolates.
If I may say….it is by the gift of faith alone - and a blessed one at that - we come to accept these teachings which our intellect cannot wholly grasp. A lot about God is mystery - including the three persons, and no-one will fully or can fully understand or know God until we are with Him and see Him as He really is.
Having said that Julian of Norwich has thrown light on this mystery in a very beautiful way, as have other saints, all of which makes me even more excited at the thought of what wonders await us all.
Beautiful - thank you, Gabrielle, for the very timely reminder of some of Julian’s loveliest writing!
Blessings
Mike
The Holy Trinity is implicit in all the mysteries of the Rosary, but I wonder if someday we’ll have 5 new decades of Trinitarian Mysteries to pray.
Every aspect of our life is taken care of! How comforting. Thanks for this meditation, Gab.
C.O., this is from the 16th and final “showing” to Julian, so there were 15 previous showings in which one could become more familiar with her language and the way in which each Person of the Trinity was being revealed to her…but it’s been three or four years since I read her Revelations, so I can’t earn my chocolates today… But her revelation here, in which she sees the distinct properties of each Person and also their oneness is just one example of what Teresa of Avila and other mystics generally experienced before the transforming union - an intellectual vision of the Holy Trinity.
Ann, you have expressed something beautifully here which I have been mulling over since the 5:00 p.m. vigil Mass yesterday, but in a sad way because of the way it was expressed in the homily. May I extract your comment for another post on this topic?
You’re welcome, Mike. I’m glad you dropped by!
C.O., what an amazing thought; I could see that happening eventually too. My post which should be up shortly at Consecrated to Mary deals with Mary and the Holy Trinity.
teresa, Julian is one of the most “comforting” mystics I have ever read. I think one needs infused faith to accept all the comforting she gives!
Certainly, Gabrielle, and thank you.
I’m going to read some of Julian’s other writings now.
I will have to re-read my “Revelation of Love” again (did I not tell you I was lazy? I was hoping you’d just do my homework for me!). Funny how I came upon it years ago — I went up to the used book store not realizing there was now a spirituality section (it was a new and tiny store..), but saw a paperback in a man’s hand that suggested so. I went a-lookin’ and sure enough, there was a tiny new section of books on the Lord. I looked through but didn’t find anything until the book on female mystics. What the heck are female mystics?, I wondered. Well, about 3 or 6 bucks later, I found out in great detail. Of them all, the story of Bl. Julian of Norwich struck me, so I went a-lookin’ for something from her exclusively and found it at B & N.
All that I’ve read that touched my heart long ago was read before I suspected Mary’s eyes were upon me for real, and before I thought much about the Holy Spirit, too; and most certainly before I realized why I think too much (but not enough). I might just have to re-read everything I have!
Carol, I too have begun to see many things that I re-read in a new light, since learning more about, and through, Mary.
Re “what the heck are female mystics?”, I had a funny experience a number of years ago. There was this woman at work who was, how shall I say, rather gifted in seeing into peoples’ lives…anyway, one day, out of the blue she walks up to me and says, “There’s a series coming up on Vision T.V. which I think you should watch; it’s on the female mystics.” I said, why do you think I should watch it? And she just stared at me and said, “You know why”, and walked away.
Sort of like when a priest says after Easter Sunday Mass when one is already utterly flying on the inside, “I would like to nominate you for the pastoral council; will you run for it?” I did not fight the urge to look behind me at all, for there was NO way he could’ve meant me! Indeed, sometimes the Lord makes the heart flip-flop, and sometimes priests make one pass out cold.