Lectio Divina Reading

May 13, 2006

The Life of the Soul

“The Wisdom of Julian of Norwich” “The place which Jesus takes in our soul he will nevermore vacate, for in us is his home of homes and his everlasting dwelling.”

And then our good Lord opened my spiritual eye, and showed me my soul in the midst of my heart. I saw the soul as wide as if it were and endless citadel, and also as if it were a blessed kingdom, and from the state which I saw in it, I understood that it is a fine city. In the midst of that city sits our Lord Jesus, true God and true man, a handsome person and tall, highest bishop, most awesome king, most honourable lord. And I saw him splendidly clad in houours. He sits erect there in the soul, in peace and rest, and he rules and guards heaven and earth and everything that is. The humanity and the divinity sit at rest, the divinity rules and guards, without instrument or effort. And the soul is wholly occupied by the blessed divinity, sovereign power, sovereign wisdom and sovereign goodness.

The place which Jesus takes in our soul he will nevermore vacate, for in us is his home of homes and his everlasting dwelling. An in this he revealed the delight that he has in the creation of man’s soul; for as well as the Father could create a creature and as well as the Son could create a creature, so well did the Holy Spirit want man’s spirit to be created, and so it was done. And therefore the blessed Trinity rejoices without beginning what would delight it without end.

Everything which God has made shows his dominion, as understanding was given at the same time by the example of a creature who is led to see the great nobility and the rulership which is fitting to a lord and when it had seen all the nobility beneath, then in wonder it was moved to seek up above for that high place where the lord swells, knowing by reason that his dwelling is in the most honourable place. And thus I understood truly that our soul may never have rest in anything which is beneath itself. And when it comes above all creatures into itself, still it cannot remain contemplating itself; but all its contemplation is blessedly set in God, who is the Creator, dwelling there, for in man’s soul is his true dwelling.

And the greatest light and the brightest shining in the city is the glorious love of our Lord God, as I see it. And what can make us to rejoice more in God than to see in him that in us, of all his greatest works, he has joy? For I saw in the same revelation that if the blessed Trinity could have created man’s soul any better, any fairer, any nobler than it was created, the Trinity would not have been fully pleased with the creation of man’s soul. But because it made man’s soul as beautiful, as good, as precious a creature as it could make, therefore the blessed Trinity is fully pleased without end in the creation of man’s soul. And it wants our hearts to be powerfully lifted above the depths of the earth and all empty sorrows, and to rejoice in it.

Translated by Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., and James Walsh, S.J.

Lectio Divina for CP Groups
Contemplative Outreach of Dallas