Beholding God Everywhere

Friday, May 22, 2026

I say, “I am here, I am here” to people who do not even invoke my name.
—Isaiah 65:1 

Father Richard views each moment as an opportunity to practice contemplation, to see things as they are, and to receive the gift of divine presence.  

The real gift of contemplative practice is to be happy and content, even while we are simply sitting on the porch, looking at a rock, or benevolently gazing at anything in its ordinariness. When we can see, accept, and say that every single act of creation is “just this,” we allow it to work its wonder on us. 

So go learn, enjoy, and rest in inner contentment and positivity—a full reservoir of fresh water, both before what feels like success and after what we might experience as failure. Then we have the treasure that no one can take from us or give to us. We will be ready to be captured by many moments of awe—and we will be capable of the surrender that brings both foundational union and joy. 

Remember, the whole process most often begins by one, long, relished moment of awe, one fully sincere moment of beholding anything and saying, “Just this!” And, as Isaiah promised, we will know that every moment is shouting, “I am here! I am here!” [1]

Spiritual writer Amy Frykholm acknowledges that while contemplation may sound simple, the practice of “beholding” anything takes desire and discipline.

Let’s be clear, though, contemplation of any object, person, idea, or being is much more difficult than it sounds. First of all, we face the difficulty of sitting down for beholding at all…. Don’t underestimate the paradigm shift required for the act of beholding, just how different it is from our everyday lives and just how shiny and compelling our everyday life will seem when we propose pausing for some time beholding. In our society, we talk frequently about the pull of technology, … but the problem we are describing is much older in nature than our cell phones.

If we are able to get ourselves situated for beholding, we will notice the next difficulty arising: We are constantly being taken out of presence by our own thoughts…. Any act of attention is not a sustained experiencing. It’s a series of successive efforts to bring attention back to the same thing, considering it again and again. This kind of encounter is a series of repeated acts of will. We gradually train our attention to encounter, discovering its fruits in slow and subtle movements over time. Whatever you behold, you eventually become beholden to. You enter into a love relation. You recognize your own dependence on the created world, the way that you are held, even as you are holding.

And sometimes grace carries us away, and we glimpse, maybe even for several seconds at a time, the whole interconnected, openhearted world … welcomes us. [2]

References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Just This (CAC Publishing, 2017), 24, 25.

[2] Amy Frykholm, Journey to the Wild Heart (Orbis Books, 2025), 28–30.

Never Stop Praying!

 SCRIPTURE READING — 1 SAMUEL 12:19-25

“Far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you.”

— 1 Samuel 12:23

MAY 22, 2026

When I was in my twenties and going through some hard times, I asked my mother to pray for me. She said, “Do you mean, in addition to the prayers that began before your birth and have not ceased to this day?” I hadn’t realized that my mom prayed so fervently for me, and that was humbling.

Samuel prayed persistently for God’s people, and we do well to follow that example.

Are you a persistent and fervent pray-er? I can’t think of anything we can do that is more pleasing to God and useful to others than prayer.

Silent, or internal, prayer is a miracle brought about by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Through the voice of the Spirit, who comes to live within us, our thoughts are heard by the triune God. We can think with and talk to God about anything, at any time, and in any place. Through our thoughts we can connect with the most powerful being in the universe, who loves us more than any other. We don’t even need an introduction; God already knows us intimately.

If you are looking for a dialogue with God, turn to Scripture, read a few verses, and pray whatever comes to mind. Any fears, worries, and wrongs you have done can be laid at God’s feet and forgotten.

Samuel and my mother were fervent and faithful pray-ers. Knowing that God loves us so much, how can we not pray?

O God, we come to you in prayer through the work of your Spirit in us. We know that you hear us. Guide us to pray faithfully. Please fill us with your grace and peace each day. Amen.

 Kent Van Til

Kent Van Til was a missionary in Costa Rica. He taught theological ethics both there and in the USA. He is the author of four books. The most recent is a spiritual biography of his grandmother entitled, “A Name for Herself: A Dutch Immigrant’s Story.” Kent likes to fish, hunt, make music, and entertain his grandchildren.

PRACTICING “JUST THIS”

Lift Your Voice to God

Thursday, May 21, 2026

Carmen Acevedo Butcher shares a contemplative practice that allows her to accept “just this”:

My name, Carmen, means song or poem, which is kind of perfect. I’ve found that I can always sing, especially when things are difficult. We tend to think there are people who can sing, and then there are the rest of us, who probably shouldn’t. But we can bring singing into our everyday lives as a contemplative practice. It creates these wonderful vibrations in our bodies and allows emotions and energies to move through us.

We don’t need to know a song by heart. Even if we just remember a favorite verse or a line, we can make it our own. It doesn’t have to be a hymn or a song that someone else recommends. We just need to find something that echoes with our hearts. It could be a line from Cole Arthur Riley or a Mary Oliver poem. We might go to Scripture to find a line like “Be still and know” (Psalm 46:10), or something in the Gospels. I like to jot the words down on a little note card and carry them around with me. Once we have our words, we can just start reading them, saying them, living with them, and letting a song come from there. We can make whatever kind of chant we want with them. For when we steep in words mindfully and repetitively, often a tune emerges spontaneously over time.

Acevedo Butcher encourages us to begin contemplative practice wherever we are in our lives:

I don’t think we wait until we feel like we’re ready to do it. We don’t have to wait until we’re feeling good. We start even if we’re tired. We start even in the middle of the mess. We start in the middle of a good day or in the middle of a difficult one. It doesn’t matter. We start now. If we want to, we just start.

If we wait to start singing—or any kind of contemplative practice—until we feel peaceful or worthy, we’ll be waiting a very long time. Sometimes, we do a practice, and if we don’t feel peaceful or holy immediately, we think we’ve failed or are doing it wrong. But that’s not the point. The point is that we do them like breathing, just in and out, over and over again. Fidelity to the practice brings about a healing alchemical effect.

Sometimes I’ll begin to sing, “Be still and know that I am God,” and at the same time I’m thinking, “I’m so stressed out today.” It turns into a little dialogue with God, “Why can’t I be stiller and know that you are?” All these thoughts go around, and this practice—this repetition of “Be still and know I am God”—holds the space of stillness and silence. We can pause and “Be still” enough to remember that we are made in God’s image, and we can honor our own voice, God’s voice within us. We don’t have to wait for a special key. The key is already within us.

Reference:
Adapted from Carmen Acevedo Butcher with Mike Petrow, “Taking the Practice Out of the Monastery,” Essentials of Engaged Contemplation, Trimester 1, mod. 3 (Center for Action and Contemplation, 2025). Unavailable.

Jesus Calling – Sarah Young

     Heaven is both present and future. As you walk along your life-path holding My hand, you are already in touch with the essence of heaven: nearness to Me. You can also find many hints of heaven along your pathway, because the earth is radiantly alive with My Presence. Shimmering sunshine awakens your heart, gently reminding you of My brilliant Light. Birds and flowers, trees and skies evoke praises to My holy Name. Keep your eyes and ears fully open as you journey with Me.
     At the end of your life-path is an entrance to heaven. Only I know when you will reach that destination, but I am preparing you for it each step of the way. The absolute certainty of your heavenly home gives you Peace and Joy, to help you along your journey. You know that you will reach your home in My perfect timing; not one moment too soon or too late. Let the hope of heaven encourage you, as you walk along the path of Life with Me.

RECOMMENDED BIBLE VERSES:
1st Corinthians 15:20-23 (NLV)
  20 But it is true! Christ has been raised from the dead! He was the first one to be raised from the dead and all those who are in graves will follow. 21 Death came because of a man, Adam. Being raised from the dead also came because of a Man, Christ. 22 All men will die as Adam died. But all those who belong to Christ will be raised to new life. 23 This is the way it is: Christ was raised from the dead first. Then all those who belong to Christ will be raised from the dead when He comes again.

Additional insight regarding 1st Corinthians 15:20: Jesus as the first part of the harvest was brought to the Temple as an offering (Leviticus 23:10-44). Christ was the first to rise from the dead and never die again. He is our forerunner, the proof of our eventual resurrection to eternal life. 

Additional insight regarding 1st Corinthians 15:21: Death came into the world as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin. In Romans 5:12-21, Paul explained why Adam’s sin brought sin to all people, how death and sin spread to all humans because of the first sin, and the parallel between Adam’s death and Christ’s death.

Hebrews 6:19 (NLV)
19 This hope is a safe anchor for our souls. It will never move. This hope goes into the Holiest Place of All behind the curtain of heaven.

Additional insight regarding Hebrews 6:19: God embodies all truth; therefore, he cannot lie, and we can be secure in his promises. We don’t need to wonder if he will change his purposes and plans. Our hope of heaven stands secure and immovable, anchored in God, just as a ship’s anchor holds firmly to the seabed. To someone truly seeking who comes to God in belief, God gives an unconditional promise of acceptance. When you ask God with openness, honesty, and sincerity to save you from your sins, he will do it. If this truth gives you encouragement, assurance, and confidence, grasp it. Don’t let go no matter what happens around you.

Books & Literature

Today’s Prayer:

Lord,

As I journey with You, I’m reminded of heaven’s nearness. Your presence fills me with Peace and Joy, reassuring me that You’re leading me to my heavenly home. Help me keep my eyes and ears open to Your guidance along the way. Amen.

Inner Awareness and Acceptance

Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Richard Rohr describes authentic prayer and contemplation as a mutual gaze of love:

Much of the early work of contemplation is discovering a way to observe ourselves from a compassionate and nonjudgmental distance until we can eventually live more and more of our lives from this calm inner awareness and acceptance. In a contemplative stance, we find ourselves smiling, sighing, and weeping at ourselves, much more than needing either to hate or to congratulate ourselves—because we are finally looking at ourselves with the eyes of God.

In these moments, we are letting God gaze at us, in the way only God can gaze—with infinite mercy, love, and compassion. God initiates a positive gaze, which now goes in both directions. (Unfortunately, we seldom allow that to happen.)

As we receive God’s compassionate gaze in contemplation, all negative energy and motivation is slowly exposed and eventually falls away as counterproductive and useless. There will be no mistrust, fear, or negativity in either direction! If we resort to any form of shaming ourselves, we will slip back into defense, denial, and overcompensation. We will not be able to “know as fully as we are known” (see 1 Corinthians 13:12).

But if we can connect with the Indwelling Presence, where the “Spirit bears common witness with our spirit” (see Romans 8:16), it can and will change our lives! This mutually loving gaze is always initiated by God and grace. Once we learn to rest there, nothing less ever satisfies. This is foundational.

To keep this space within ourselves open, we need some form of meditative practice—something much more than “saying” prayers. Authentic prayer is invariably a matter of both emptying the mind and filling the heart, and often one follows the other. We have to move beyond recited, formulaic, and social prayers to bring the mind down into the heart.

So when you pray, try to stay beneath your thoughts, neither fighting them nor thinking them. Everything that comes also goes, usually in waves. Hold yourself at a more profound level, perhaps in your chest, solar plexus, or deep breath, but stay in your body-self somehow. Do not rise to the mind and its endlessly repetitive commentary.

Just rest in what I like to call our animal contentment. It will feel exactly like nothing, like emptiness. Stay crouched there at the cellular level, without shame or fear, long enough for the Deeper Source to reveal itself. Universal love flows through you from that Deeper Source as a vital energy much more than an idea.

=======================

MAY 20, 2026 Appearance Isn’t Everything. Skye Jethani

“Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.” That sentence became infamous after the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986. Here’s the backstory. The night before the launch had been extremely cold, and NASA engineers warned that the freezing temperatures could have damaged the o-ring seals on the Shuttle’s rocket boosters. They recommended postponing the launch.However, political and media pressure for the launch was intense. Not least because the Challenger crew included Christa McAuliffe, a public school teacher who was central to NASA’s public-relations campaign. This is why those calling for a delay because of safety concerns were told, “Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.” In other words, the space agency’s public image was more important than an invisible and unlikely safety failure. The launch proceeded, and 73 seconds later, the Challenger exploded, killing all seven crew members. The Challenger tragedy illustrates the danger of overvaluing public perception. The need to please an audience, to appear flawless, and to win the approval of others can lead us to downplay or ignore the less visible yet more critical aspects of our lives. When this posture is applied to our life with God, we can begin to think that looking righteous is more important than actually being righteous. This is the very definition of hypocrisy that Jesus addresses repeatedly in the Sermon on the Mount. For example, in Jesus’ culture, fasting was a mark of deep commitment to God. It was a holy practice for the truly devout. In a society where religiosity was rewarded, to be seen fasting gave a person greater status and prestige. That is why Jesus warned about the dangers of fasting in a way that catches others’ attention. By the time of the Protestant Reformation, the same temptation existed. Martin Luther said fasting had become “a device for having people look at them, talk about them, admire them, and say in astonishment: ‘Oh, what wonderful saints these people are! They do not live like the other, ordinary people. They go around in gray coats, with their heads hanging down and sour, pale expressions on their faces. If such people do not get to heaven, what will become of the rest of us?’” Today, I don’t think most people seek approval through flaunting their fasting. In Christian communities, we have developed different ways of making ourselves appear more righteous than others, and we have new symbols to display our devotion to God. They vary in different churches and communities. In some, it’s about displaying Jesus-branded merchandise, bumper stickers, home decor, or even tattoos. In others, it may be a yard sign, wristband, or laptop sticker that reveals your concern for a particular issue or cause. The details will differ, but the underlying temptation is the same. We want others to think well of us, our values, and our commitment to the things of God. But all of this focus on our external perception and acceptance can cause us to ignore the deeper truths that need our attention. In too many Christian communities, people are rewarded for taking off their spiritual formation hats and putting on their image management hats. Sadly, this is even the case among those who ought to know better—the church leaders and Bible teachers. When this happens, we will both miss the deeper life of communion with God that Jesus calls us to, and we will minimize the warning signs of a personal or corporate catastrophe. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 6:16–18 1 THESSALONIANS 2:3–8 WEEKLY PRAYER Martin Luther (1483–1546) O God, graciously comfort and tend all who are imprisoned, hungry, thirsty, naked and miserable; also all widows, orphans, sick and sorrowing. In brief, give us our daily bread, so that Christ may abide in us and we in him forever, and with him we may worthily bear the name of ‘Christian.’ Amen

Individual Reflection

What are you still wanting from the eyes of others that you haven’t yet let God’s gaze satisfy?

Group Discussion — choose one:

Where do you most feel the hunger to be esteemed, approved, or thought well of?

What fear — of being overlooked, rejected, or exposed — quietly shapes how you present yourself?

What would shift in you if God’s gaze of mercy were finally enough?

Tuesday, May 19, 2026

CAC Dean of Faculty Carmen Acevedo Butcher translated The Cloud of Unknowing, the foundational text for Centering Prayer. Contemplative practice creates space for us to be with God, after which we return to our daily lives and commitments. The anonymous author of The Cloud encourages beginners to enter contemplation with these simple instructions:

Lift up your heart to God with a gentle stirring of love. Focus on him alone. Want him, and not anything he’s made. Think on nothing but him. Don’t let anything else run through your mind and will. Here’s how. Forget what you know. Forget everything God made and everybody who exists and everything that’s going on in the world, until your thoughts and emotions aren’t focused on reaching toward anything…. Let them be. For a moment don’t care about anything…

Everyone on earth has been helped by contemplation in wonderful ways. You can’t know how much…. So stop hesitating. Do this work until you feel the delight of it. [1]

The author urges beginner contemplatives to welcome the temporary experience of “unknowing” that takes place in this type of prayer: 

The first time you practice contemplation, you’ll only experience a darkness, like a cloud of unknowing. You won’t know what this is.  You’ll only know that in your will you feel a simple reaching out to God. You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God, whatever you do. They will always keep you from seeing him clearly by the light of understanding in your intellect and will block you from feeling him in the sweetness of love in your emotions. So be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can…. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. [2]

For Acevedo Butcher, contemplation is an essential practice of our time, enabling us to meet the challenging conditions of our lives with greater wisdom and compassion: 

We need contemplation because, as our globe gets more crowded by the hour, more and more we act like elbow-to-elbow passengers in cheap coach seats on a commuter flight…. Who doesn’t rush through the day? Who never feels the pressure to produce? How often are you in cyberspace? Our new frantic pace is like poison to our holding hands with those we love. That is where contemplation comes in. It reconnects us to ourselves, to God, and to others. It helps us learn to forgive and heal our souls….

For the first sixteen centuries of the Christian church, contemplative prayer was the goal of Christian spirituality, and now in our own time of transition and upheaval, … we are returning to our roots. Contemplative prayer is more relevant than ever before. More and more of us are practicing this ancient form of prayer and finding peace in a world of war, extreme political divide, epidemics, terrorism, technology, overcrowding, noise, inequality, and a Church in need of humility.

============================

From Diana Butler Bass’ Sunday Musings

“Maple Spiral” by Freeman Patterson. Please visit the photographer’s website to view his prints, workshops, and books. You can also discover more about his work in this short film.

On a recent trip to New Brunswick, my host arranged for me to meet Freeman Patterson, a world-renown Canadian photographer. 

I confess that I hadn’t heard of him. But my friend knew how I love art, gardens, and theology — and that Freeman’s interests combine all three. And so I did what any decent person would do in advance of such a meeting. I looked him up on the internet. 

Richard was also on this trip. As we pursued Freeman’s website, the photograph above caught his attention. “This looks like an illustration of your work,” Richard said. “You could have used it in your powerpoint in last night’s lecture!” 

He passed me his phone. On the screen was a breathtaking image of a spiral, whirling oranges, yellows, and greens with a single cobalt blue crescent at its center. “You’re right,” I said. “It is stunning. What do you think it is?”

We didn’t know. We couldn’t figure it out. 

The next day, we had the privilege of spending an afternoon at his home and garden in rural New Brunswick. The conversation was delightful and wide-ranging, and, as often happens, we discovered threads that connected our seemingly very distant lives. I finally asked him about the spiral photograph we’d seen online. “What it is? Something like a fiddlehead fern?” 

He laughed. “No. It is a maple tree!”

“A maple tree — one maple tree?” I asked incredulously. “Yes. A maple tree in the autumn, taken in a series of exposures, moving the camera slightly in each frame. The blue is the sky above.”

He shared with us a little bit about how he creates his photographs, with double and multiple exposures, slight camera movements, and widened apertures. We looked at the prints he had displayed in his home, thumbed through his books, and walked in his woodland garden. Inwardly, I marveled. This wasn’t about just making photographs or creating a garden. This was his vision of both everything and himself. It wasn’t just about a camera. It was about his open aperture. He could see deeper and further and differently. The spiral was far more than a cleverly exposed maple tree — it was his journey, wisdom and wonder, and an image of the oneness of all things.

That maple tree was a living spiral, an entirely different vision of the Tree of Life. There, in the garden. 

We didn’t really want to leave. 

*****

Does the Gospel of John ever drive you crazy? 

It probably should because today is one of those days. This is not the work of a linear thinker. The text whirls about with words, pulling ideas from here and there, weaving them together to create an effect, an experience, an uncommunicable vision. The Jesus in John’s story doesn’t tell parables. He doesn’t offer sermons or moral lessons. Instead, he roams about in mystical experiences and waxes poetic. Some scholars refer to John’s style as paroimia (παροιμία), a Greek term for “sideways” truths usually expressed in allegory, riddles, or metaphors.

What is this? All these words about glory and the world and oneness? 

I mean honestly: What is this? 

“All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

You could try to explain that in a thousand ways and probably never come close to what it is. Who is this Jesus? Who is going where? What, truly, is his relationship with “Holy Father”? And who is one with whom? 

I’ve heard genuinely tortured sermons on this text over the years. Some poor pastor trying to make sense of this as narrative, a story with a beginning, middle, and end, with an arc and plot lines, and clearly drawn characters. But it is not that. 

It is, instead, a sideways truth. 

More like a spiral. 

That recent visit, surrounded by photographs and woodlands, books and water vistas, opened my soul-aperture a bit wider. I wasn’t just meeting a well-known photographer; I was encountering a gifted teacher, a seer the world. As we talked about all manner of things and walked in the garden, he was showing me how to appreciate small movements, to see differently, to layer multiple views, and to let more light in. It wasn’t narrative; it wasn’t didactic; it wasn’t polemic. It was sideways. 

A spiral. 

I think that is the Gospel of John. Like “Maple Spiral,” the whole thing is a series of multiple exposures by modest repositioning to create a single image. From John’s magisterial opening:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

To the moment when a grief-stricken Mary tries to embrace her dearest friend:

Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew,^*‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher).

And the blue clearing in the sky? The central point of the image:

Love. 

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.

Love is the oneness, the still center of the spiral. The blue dot. Love, love, love. Love is the origin point of creation; love is Mary reaching to hold the body of Jesus. For God so loved the cosmos that he gave his only Son…. Love is the Alpha and Omega. The “I am” and the “You are.” 

Do you see it? Tilt your gaze sideways, open your eyes just a little wider. One maple tree, spiraling through time and space. One whirl of love sweeping every frame toward the same focal point, the heart of it all. 

One. Love is the center. Love winds to the One. 

---

=============

Individual Reflection

Where are you being invited to abide rather than to understand?

Group Discussion — choose one:

• Where do you notice love as the still center in your life — or where do you long for it to be?
• What does it stir in you to be told to “make your home in this darkness”?
• What would change if you tilted your gaze sideways at your own life today?

Sunday, May 17, 2026

In his book Just This, Father Richard Rohr considers how contemplative prayer allows us to release our thoughts, finding deeper wisdom and guidance:   

Contemplation is a panoramic, receptive awareness whereby we take in all that a situation, moment, or person offers without judging, eliminating, or labeling anything. It is pure and positive gazing that abandons all negative pushback so we can begin to recognize inherent dignity. It takes much practice and a lot of unlearning of habitual responses. 

We have to work at contemplation and develop practices whereby we recognize our compulsive and repetitive patterns. In doing so, we allow ourselves to be freed from the need to “take control of the situation”—as if we ever really could anyway! 

It seems we are addicted to our need to make distinctions and judgments, which we mistake for intelligent thinking. Most of us think we are our thinking, yet almost all thinking is compulsive, repetitive, and habitual. We are forever writing our inner commentaries on everything, commentaries that always reach the same practiced conclusions. That is why all forms of meditation and contemplation teach a way of quieting this compulsively driven and unconsciously programmed mind. 

The desert fathers and mothers wisely called this process “the shedding of thoughts.” We don’t fight, repress, deny, identify with, or even judge them; we merely shed them. We are so much more than our thoughts about things,and we will feel this more as an unlearning than a learning of any new content. [1] 

When we meditate consistently, a sense of our autonomy and private self-importance—what we think of as our “self”—falls away, little by little, as unnecessary, unimportant, and even unhelpful in many cases. The imperial “I,” the self that we likely experience as our only self, reveals itself as largely a creation of our mind. 

Through regular practice of contemplation, we become less and less interested in protecting this self-created, relative identity. We don’t have to attack it; it calmly falls away of its own accord, and we experience a kind of natural humility. 

If our prayer goes deep, “invading” our unconscious, as it were, our whole view of the world will change from fear to connection. We won’t live inside our fragile and encapsulated self anymore, nor will we feel any need to protect it. In meditation, we move from ego consciousness to soul awareness, from being fear-driven to being love-drawn. That’s it in a few words! 

Of course, we only have the courage to do this if Someone Else is holding us, taking away our fear, doing the knowing, and satisfying our desire for a Great Lover. If we can allow that Someone Else to lead us in this dance, we will live with new vitality, a natural gracefulness, and inside of a Flow that we did not create. It is the life of the Trinity, spinning through us

Forgiving Our Thoughts

Monday, May 18, 2026

For Father Richard, true prayer begins with a positive “yes,” a surrender to God and Reality:  

When I entered the Franciscan seminary in 1961, part of our training was learning to avoid, resist, and oppose all distractions. It was such poor teaching, but it was the only way we thought back then. It was all about willpower: celibacy through willpower, poverty through willpower, community through willpower. But willpower isn’t what we need—or it’s not all that we need! We need the power to surrender the will, to face, and even to trust what is. Now, that’s heroic! Anything less is a fruitless and futile effort, because if we start with negative energy, a “don’t,” we won’t get very far (see Romans 7:7–11). That was the extent of the teaching I received, and it was really no teaching at all—just “Don’t!” When we hear that, the ego immediately pushes back. Some days we have strong willpower and we succeed, but most days we barely succeed. [1]

We know the old shibboleth, “Don’t think of an elephant.” If we try not to, that dang elephant invariably sneaks back into our minds! Just wait. To actively oppose something actually engages with it and gives it energy. That’s why so many spiritual teachers say, “What you resist persists.” 

Our first energy has to be “yes” energy, an acceptance of what is. From there we can move, build, and proceed, even if in opposition. We must choose the positive, which is to choose love, and rest there for a minimum of fifteen conscious seconds. It takes that long for positivity to imprint in the neurons, I’m told. [2]

Father Richard advises “neither clinging nor opposing” when it comes to facing distractions in contemplative prayer:  

If I had told my novice master I wasn’t going to fight my distractions, he would have said, “So you’re going to entertain lustful or hateful thoughts?” But that would have missed the major point. The real learning curve happens when we can admit we’re having a thought or feeling and recognize that it’s empty, passing, and part of a fantasy that has no final reality except as a source of information. 

We must listen honestly to ourselves. We must listen to whatever thought or feeling arises long enough to ask, “Why am I thinking this? What is this thought revealing in or about me? Why am I willing to entertain this negative, accusatory, or lustful thought?” 

We don’t have to hate or condemn ourselves for a thought or feeling, but we do have to let it yield its wisdom. Then we will realize it is a wounded or needy part of us that creates these unhealthy thoughts. Our true self, our whole self, doesn’t need them, and will not identify with them. 

If we can allow our thoughts and feelings to pass through us, neither clinging to them nor opposing them—and without ever expecting perfect success—I promise that we will come to a deeper, wider, and wiser place. Even our inability to fully succeed is, in itself, another wonderful lesson. [3]

===============

Individual Reflection

What in you today is fear-driven rather than love-drawn?

---

Group Discussion — choose one:

1. What does it look like to be “love-drawn” rather than “fear-driven”?
2. What thought have you been resisting that might be asking to yield its wisdom?
3. Where might surrender — not willpower — be what’s being asked of you today?

JULIAN OF NORWICH: A UNIVERSAL MYSTIC

God Dwells in All

Friday, May 15, 2026

Matthew Fox traces the universal nature of Julian’s message of mystical hope and divine love:

Julian makes explicit on many occasions that she is speaking to a very broad audience—one that includes those of us who live 650 years later. It follows, then, that we recognize that sense of inclusion. “In God’s sight, all humanity is one person, and all people are a single humanity.”… [1] For Julian, the traditional teaching of the church as the mystical body of Christ is extended to the entire human race….

When she celebrates the beauty of being human, she again makes explicit that she is talking about all and not some sectarian group. “God made us so rich and noble in our essence that all we can do is strive to enact his will and honor him in all things. When I say ‘we,’ I mean all true spiritual seekers.” [2] When she says “all,” she means all. This would include, in our time, all versions of Christians and all Jews, all Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Muslims, goddess worshippers, those of indigenous religions, and those of no religions, whether agnostic or atheist. That is how ecumenical she is—and in the fourteenth century, no less.

When speaking of retreating “into our own souls, which is where our Beloved dwells,” she again speaks out about the universality that encompasses our spiritual search: “Let no man or woman think this truth applies personally to the individual. It does not; it is universal. This beautiful human nature of ours was prepared for our precious Mother Christ.” [3]

Through contemplating her visions over many years, Julian recognized that God’s love wasn’t only for her but for all creation:

In explaining how she came to write her book, she confesses that she first saw [her visions] as a personal thing, but then she came to understand that they applied to humanity as a whole. “At first, I applied this teaching to my individual self, because at the time I was not moved to see it otherwise. But the great and gracious comfort that followed made me realize that God meant this insight for the whole of humanity.” [4] She learned that her work ought to reach a broad audience, “I made the mistake of privatizing this showing instead of taking it to mean loving my fellow Christians better. What could make me love my fellow Christians better than to see that God loves us all as we are all one soul?” [5] …

Such a sense of universality translates into action, for “those who have universal love for all their fellow Christians in God have love towards everything that exists. For in us all is comprehended all, that is, all that is created and the Creator of all.” [6] Creation and cosmos belong to everyone—and no one—and it call us to a larger consciousness of expanded love.

References:
[1] Julian of Norwich, The Showings: Uncovering the Face of the Feminine in Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Mirabai Starr (Hampton Roads, 2022), 133. Selection from chap. 51.

[2] Julian, Showings, 157. Selection from chap. 57.

[3] Julian, Showings, 172. Selection from chap. 62.

[4] Julian, Showings, 212. Selection from chap. 79.

[5] Brendan Doyle, Meditations with Julian of Norwich (Bear & Co., 1983), 64.

[6] Doyle, Meditations, 33.

Matthew Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond (iUniverse: 2020), xxxii–xxxiii.

===============================================

Jesus Calling – Sarah Young

I AM the Gift that continuously gives — bounteously, with no strings attached. Unconditional Love is such a radical concept that even My most devoted followers fail to grasp it fully. Absolutely nothing in heaven or on earth can cause Me to stop loving you. You may feel more loved when you are performing according to your expectations. But My Love for you is perfect; therefore, it is not subject to variation. What does vary is your awareness of My loving Presence.
     When you are dissatisfied with your behavior, you tend to feel unworthy of My Love. You may unconsciously punish yourself by withdrawing from Me and attributing the distance between us to My displeasure. Instead of returning to Me and receiving My Love, you attempt to earn My approval by trying harder. All the while, I am aching to hold you in My everlasting arms, to enfold you in My Love. When you are feeling unworthy or unloved, come to Me. Then ask for receptivity to My unfailing Love.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

1st John 4:15-18 (NLT)

15 All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.
18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

Deuteronomy 33:27 (NLT)

Psalm 13:5 (NLT)
5 But I trust in your unfailing love.
    I will rejoice because you have rescued me.

=======================================

John Chaffee – Five on Friday

1.

“The Christian of the future will be a mystic, or they won’t exist at all.”

– Karl Rahner, German Jesuit Priest

Drop the theo-logic.

Drop the religious tribalism.

Drop the spiritual pride and the moral elitism.

God is not found in any of those things.

Nor is God coerced or impressed by any of those things.

I am convinced that we all have a deep itch and a desire for true transcendence.  However, in pursuit of it, we become more seduced by describing transcendence, dictating who gets to experience it, or trying to manufacture an experience of transcendence.

Let’s be honest, we are all just looking for a life-changing experience of the Divine.

For me, that Divine Presence is truly found in the Blessed Trinity, which invites the whole of everything to join in its Cosmic Dance.

The problem is that people go to church, and we teach them to become members but not mystics.  We invite people to open their hymnals but not open their eyes and see that God-is-in-All-Things and All-Things-are-in-God.

I hope I am not coming across as cynical; I do not mean to do so if I am.  All I want to say is that I hope Christianity can reclaim some of its own contemplative and mystical dimensions.  Unless we reclaim those roots, Christianity in the West will continue to be a cute country club with which to convince ourselves and others that we are good people.  I believe it is so much more than that.  I sincerely believe it is a true expression of devotion to the infinite mystery we call God, revealed in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

2.

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

– Brene Brown, Researcher and Author

It feels as though a fair amount of energy is spent in our lives just trying to avoid vulnerability.

The problem is that it is exhausting to even try to do that for any duration of time.

There was a whole season of my life when I utterly failed to connect with people, and looking back, I see that is because I primarily did not know how to be vulnerable with myself.

Once I opened that door, or learned that skillset to a sufficient degree, I found the quality of my time and conversations with other people changed dramatically…

Why?

Being closed off tells other people they should be closed off, but being vulnerable invites people to drop their guard and risk being vulnerable themselves.

3.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

– Rumi, Persian Sufi Poet

Man, that’s a good one.

Here we are, all looking for love.

And yet, the most important thing may not be to look for love, but to remove all the ways in which we are stopped up within ourselves from receiving it from where it is already coming.

4.

“If a church never gets into conflict with the ruling powers, it should question whether it is a church of Jesus Christ.”

– Jon Sobrino, Spanish Priest and Theologian

This coming Sunday, I will be giving a guest sermon at a local church I have known for at least a decade.  It is a lovely little church just about an hour outside of Philly.

I am looking forward to preaching, not merely because I will see familiar faces, but because the text assigned to me is Isaiah 14:1-20.  Since I had never preached on that topic before, I felt as though it would be a unique challenge.

The passage is interesting on the surface because it is often attributed to the downfall of Satan.  The passage describes how Satan will be overthrown due to his oppressive stance towards the faithful and his spiritual pride.

HOWEVER,

The passage, in context, is actually about the King of Babylon.  In fact, Isaiah 14:3-4 says, “On the day the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labor forced on you, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon.”

It is supposed to be a taunt of the king of Babylon!

God does not suffer tyrants and oppressors for long.  They, too, will have their day.

So, when I came upon the quote above from Jon Sobrino, it resonated with what I was learning myself about the context of Isaiah 14!

5.

“Believe me, don’t wait until tomorrow to begin becoming a saint.  The time is NOW!”

– Therese of Lisieux, French Catholic Mystic

I am not my best self.  Not by a long shot.

Of course, I have better days than others, but that is frighteningly affected by how good a night’s sleep I have had or whether or not people treat me the way I want to be treated.

For about a week now, I have been reading The Story of a Soul, the spiritual autobiography of Therese of Lisieux.  At times, it is a bit saccharine and easy to skim, but there are many pieces within it that completely grab my attention, so I grab my highlighter.

Therese’s life was cut short in her mid-20s because of Tuberculosis.  She suffered greatly and knew that she would likely die an early death because of the amount of blood she would cough up.

As a result, she knew that time was a finite resource.

The stakes are high; the world desperately needs both you and me to become the best, healthiest, and holiest versions of ourselves.  Time waits for no one, and as a result, it benefits us and those around us to do what we can to become saints as soon as possible.

Let us give up our vices, our sarcasm, our despair, our scarcity mindset, our need for approval, etc., and finally and freely embrace lives that live in the Light (as He is in the Light).

Goodness of God

Essential Joy

Thursday, May 14, 2026

Julian of Norwich is without a doubt one of the most wonderful of all Christian voices.
—Thomas Merton, Seeds of Destruction

Dr. Gloria Durka explores Thomas Merton’s love of Julian’s positive theology:

Learning to remain hopeful amidst the darkness of suffering is a struggle in which all of us become engaged from time to time—and it can be a bitter trial. The optimism of Julian can help us as it did Thomas Merton. In his book Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Merton wrote the following:

I pray much to have a wise heart, and perhaps the rediscovery of Lady Julian of Norwich will help me. I took her book with me on a quiet walk among the cedars. She is a true theologian…. She first experienced, then thought, and the thoughtful deepening of experience worked it back into her life, deeper and deeper, until her whole life as a recluse at Norwich was simply a matter of getting completely saturated in the light she had received all at once…. Her life was lived in the belief in this “secret,” the “great deed” that the Lord will do on the Last Day, not a deed of destruction and revenge, but of mercy and of life, all partial expectations will be exploded and everything will be made right…. [1]

Julian’s writings are permeated with Christian hope. She experienced all of the aspects of hope in her own spiritual life: the rocklike dependability of God, the God who is always near, the God of the impossible, the God who is Father and Mother to us.

Julian was especially aware of the joyful character of hope…. Human joy is essential to Julian’s spirituality. To her, we are meant to be full of joy because our joy in God reflects the joy of the Trinity. Creation is an act of God’s joy. The more faithfully and hopefully we respond to God’s love in our life, the greater will be the fullness of our joy.

Was Julian ever more relevant? Her message of hope surely lightened the spirits of many in her troubled age. We probably need her message at least as much today. The threat of nuclear holocaust, the possibility of extinguishing all life forms on the planet earth, and deadly violence between warring peoples are daily reminders of the cloud of despair that hovers above us. Great faith and hope are required in order to penetrate the gloom caused by shattering events…. We need great faith and hope to see beyond the darkness of our personal life—our failures, weaknesses, and fears.

But gloom, fear, and anxiety are only one side of reality. The other side is that we are an Easter people. Even though suffering is real, the life, Passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus have won for each of us the assurance that death is conquered…. Alleluia!

Sarah Young – Jesus Calling

I am with you and for you. You face nothing alone–nothing! When you feel anxious, know that you are focusing on the visible world and leaving Me out of the picture. The remedy is simple: Fix your eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. Verbalize your trust in Me, the Living One who sees you always. I will get you safely through this day and all your days. But you can find Me only in the present. Each day is a precious gift from My Father. How ridiculous to grasp for future gifts when today’s is set before you! Receive today’s gift gratefully, unwrapping it tenderly and delving into its depths. As you savor this gift, you find Me.

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Romans 8:31 NLT

Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love

31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

2nd Corinthians 4:18 NLT

18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Genesis 16:13-14

13 Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.”[a] She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” 14 So that well was named Beer-lahai-roi (which means “well of the Living One who sees me”). It can still be found between Kadesh and Bered.

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Beloved One, may you be blessed because it is so: all is well.
—Julian of Norwich, Showings

Spiritual teacher and translator Mirabai Starr describes how Julian’s positive experience of God sustained her when things were not “well” in the world around her:

The medieval English anchoress Julian of Norwich bequeathed us a radically optimistic theology. She had no problem admitting that human beings have a tendency to go astray. We rupture relationships, dishonor the Divine, make unfortunate choices, and try to hide our faults. And yet, Julian insists, “All will be well and all will be well and every kind of thing shall be well.” [1]

Take that in.

This assertion is meant to penetrate the fog of our despair and wake us up. She does not simply state, “Everything’s going to be okay.”… She does not ask us to engage in a spiritual bypass by relegating everything that unfolds to the will of God, calling it perfect against all evidence to the contrary. She squarely faces the inevitability that we will miss the mark and that there is wickedness in this world. Even so, she is convinced that the nature of the Divine is loving-kindness, and she wants us to absorb this into every fiber of our being.

Starr considers Julian’s teachings on sin: 

In her mystical masterwork The Showings, Julian shares that she used to obsess about sin. She couldn’t figure out why God, who is all-powerful, wouldn’t have eliminated our negative proclivities when he made the world. “If he had left sin out of creation, it seemed to me, all would be well.” But what God-the-Mother showed Julian in a near-death vision was that all shall be well anyway….

Julian unpacks this for us [in chapter 27]. In doing so she dispenses with the whole concept of sin and replaces it with love. “I believe that sin has no substance,” Julian writes, “not a particle of being.” While sin itself has no existential value, it has impact. It causes pain. It is the pain that has substance.

But mercy is swiftly forthcoming. It is immediately available. Inexorable! It is frankly rude of us to doubt that all will be well (and all will be well and every kind of thing shall be well). “When he said these gentle words,” Julian writes, speaking of God-the-Mother, “he showed me that he does not have one iota of blame for me, or for any other person. So, wouldn’t it be unkind of me to blame God for my transgressions since he does not blame me?” The merciful nature of God renders the whole blame game obsolete….

For those of us who do not subscribe to a belief in some perfect afterworld but, rather, are focused on making things better right here on Earth, this teaching may feel disconnected. But what Julian is saying, with heartbreaking compassion, is that we cannot know this now, from our limited, pain-drenched perspective. Yet eventually we will awaken to the truth that we are unconditionally adored by God. =

================

Never a Lonely Prayer. Skye Jethani

In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, we find the most well-known passage in all of Scripture: the Lord’s Prayer. Long before most people had access to the Bible, and well before most people were educated enough to read it, Christians were taught the Lord’s Prayer. It has been used in Christian worship since the beginning of the church, and continues to be a guide for how we commune with God. Interestingly, the Lord’s Prayer is found in the sermon immediately after the section where Jesus warns his followers not to pray openly in public for others to see. He calls them to pray alone, in private. However, the prayer he then teaches them to recite while alone is entirely corporate in structure and language. In other words, Jesus commands us to pray in private while understanding that our prayers themselves are never private.For example, the Lord’s Prayer begins by addressing God as “OurFather.” John Chrysostom, the early church father, noted that Jesus “did not say ‘My Father’ but ‘Our Father,’” and that when we recite the Lord’s Prayer, we are “offering petitions for the common body, and not looking merely to each man’s own interests but everywhere to his neighbor’s.” Of course, he is correct. Nowhere in the prayer do the pronouns I, me, or my appear. Only our and us.The prayer of Jesus assumes we are connected—that we are part of a community. I appreciate how Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it in his book,Life Together: “The prayer of the Christian is never a lonely prayer.” The individualism that marks so much of our culture does not contaminate Jesus’ teaching. He recognizes that even when we are alone in prayer, our prayers are never lonely because we are forever connected to one another. We are all part of the great family of God, which transcends every boundary: national, ethnic, cultural, even generational. When we bow our heads and pray these words, we are taking part in a family prayer. The Lord’s Prayer binds the people of God together across time and space.This morning, as you commune with God alone in silence and in prayer, recite the Lord’s Prayer silently or aloud. As you do, allow the plural pronouns “our” and “us” to resonate and inspire your imagination. Pay attention to the faces that come into your mind. Remember your sisters and your brothers. Remember that we all share the same Father in heaven and that your communion with him cannot be separated from your communion with them.  DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 6:9–13 ROMANS 8:12–17 WEEKLY PRAYER. Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) O Lord, let me no longer desire health or life except to spend them for you and with you. You alone know what is good for me; therefore do what seems best to you. Give to me or take from me; conform me to your will; and grant that, with humble and perfect submission, and in holy confidence, I may receive the orders of your eternal providence; and may equally adore all that comes to me from you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Mystic Who Suffered

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

READ ON CAC.ORG

In a time parched for wisdom like ours … we are invited to return to our ancestors who have proven themselves wise. Julian is such an ancestor.
—Matthew Fox, Julian of Norwich

Theologian Matthew Fox describes Julian of Norwich as a mystic for our times. He highlighted her writings during the COVID-19 pandemic, living as she did through the Black Death (bubonic plague). He writes:

A time of crisis and chaos, the kind that a pandemic brings, is, among other things, a time to call on our ancestors for their deep wisdom. Not just knowledge but true wisdom is needed in a time of death and profound change, for at such times we are beckoned not simply to return to the immediate past, that which we remember fondly as “the normal,” but to reimagine a new future, a renewed humanity, a more just and therefore sustainable culture, and one even filled with joy.

Julian of Norwich … is one of those ancestors calling to us today…. Julian is a stunning thinker, a profound theologian and mystic, a fully awake woman, and a remarkable guide with a mighty vision to share for twenty-first-century seekers…. Julian knew a thing or two about “sheltering in place,” because she was an anchoress—that is, someone who, by definition, is literally walled up inside a small space for life. Julian also knew something about fostering a spirituality that can survive the trauma of a pandemic. While others all about her were freaking out about nature gone awry, Julian kept her spiritual and intellectual composure, staying grounded and true to her belief in the goodness of life, creation, and humanity and, in no uncertain terms, inviting others to do the same. [1]

Julian was not afraid to face reality. By entering fully into it, she discovered God’s grace:

Julian’s response to the pandemic [of her time], as we know it from her two books, is amazingly grounded in a love of life and gratitude. Instead of running from death, she actually prayed to enter into it and it is from that experience of death all around her and meditating on the cruel crucifixion of Christ that she interpreted as a communal, not just a personal event, that her visions arrived….

What is remarkable about her life and teaching is that instead of yielding to despair or blame, she sought out in depth the goodness of life and creation. Indeed, she established her entire worldview on this sense of goodness and the sacred marriage of grace and nature, a sense of God-in-nature. [2]

Julian’s teachings are encouragement for our time:

Our sister and ancestor Julian is eager not only to speak to us today but to shout at us—albeit in a gentle way—to wake up and to go deep, to face the darkness and to dig down and find goodness, joy and awe. And to go to work to defend Mother Earth and all her creatures, stripping ourselves of racism, sexism, nationalisms, anthropocentrism, sectarianism—anything that interferes with our greatness as human beings. And to connect anew to the sacredness of life.

==================

Thoughts…DJR

Yesterday we sat with John’s sentence: God is love. Period. Today we meet a woman who tested it.

Julian of Norwich lived through the Black Death. Estimates run from a third to half of her city dead — and this wasn’t a once-and-done event; the plague came back in waves through her lifetime. This is the world she was praying in. Walled into a small cell attached to a church, by choice, by vocation. Sheltering in place, as Fox puts it, before any of us knew what that phrase meant.

And out of that world, she wrote a sentence that ought to be impossible: There is no wrath in God.

Not “less wrath than we thought.” Not “wrath balanced out by mercy.” None. She said it plain. And she said it after watching her neighbors die. Whatever we make of that sentence theologically, let’s sit for a second with the fact that it wasn’t written by someone who had the luxury of not knowing what suffering was. It was written by someone who had seen more death than most of us will ever see, and who came out the other side saying — He was good the whole time. The wrath was never there.

This is what I trust about Julian. She earned the right to say what she said.

Fox calls her a mystic for our times. I think he’s right, but not mainly because we’ve been near a pandemic ourselves. She’s a mystic for our times because most of us are carrying some version of the question she answered. Can the goodness of God hold when the bottom drops out? Is “God is love” a sentence that works in the daylight but evaporates at 2am? Julian’s whole life is an answer. Yes. It holds. And not because we white-knuckle our way into believing it — because, if we go down far enough into the dark, we find it was already there. Holding us the whole time.

Her famous line — all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well — gets read sometimes like a refrigerator magnet. It is not a refrigerator magnet. It is something Christ said to a woman in the middle of visions of His own crucifixion, while plague-pits were being dug in the next parish over. That sentence has teeth. It’s the sentence of someone who looked.

If we’re in a hard stretch right now — and a few of us are — let’s not reach for Julian like a pill. Let’s meet her as a sister who’s been there. She’s not telling us to feel better. She’s telling us that the ground we’re walking on, even now, is held. The love John wrote about in our reading yesterday is not a fair-weather sentence. It’s bedrock. It was bedrock when her city was dying. It’s bedrock today.

Let’s sit with that for a minute. Let it be true.

For Contemplation: Where in our own lives have we had to discover that “God is love” actually held — not in theory, but in the dark?

Sunday, May 10, 2026

Father Richard Rohr praises the wisdom of the mystic Julian of Norwich (1342–ca. 1416), who experienced the motherhood of God and Jesus.

Translator and dear friend of mine Mirabai Starr offers these words from the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich: “This beautiful word ‘mother’ is so sweet and kind in itself that it cannot be attributed to anyone but God.” [1] With these words, Julian offers us an amazing and foundational statement. She is not saying that the most beloved attributes of motherhood can analogously be applied to God, although I am sure she would agree they could. She is saying much more—that the very word mother is so definitive and beautiful in most people’s experience (not everybody’s, I must add) that it evokes, at its best, what we mean by God. This perspective is not what most of the world’s religions have taught or believed up to now—except for the mystics. Among these, Julian of Norwich stands as pivotal. 

The concept and human experience of mother is so primal, so big, deep, universal, and wide that to apply it only to our own mothers is far too small a container. It can only be applied to God. This is revolutionary! Mother is, for Julian, the best descriptor for God Herself! I use this to illustrate the courageous, original, and yet fully orthodox character of Julian’s teaching.

Father Richard considers the archetypal human need for maternal care:  

Julian helps me finally understand one major aspect of my own Catholic culture: why in heaven’s name, for centuries, did both the Eastern and Western Churches attribute so many beautiful and beloved places, shrines, hills, cathedrals, and works of religious art in the Middle East and Europe, not usually to Jesus, or even to God, but to some iteration of Mother Mary? Many people in Julian’s time didn’t have access to scripture—in fact, most couldn’t read at all. They interpreted at the level of archetype and symbol. The “word” or logos was quite good, but a feminine image for God was even better.

The soul needs a Mother Savior and a God Nurturer! God is, in essence, like a good mother—so compassionate that there is no need to compete with a Father God—as we see in Julian’s always balanced teachings. [2] 

Mirabai Starr translates one of Julian’s teachings on God as Mother:

Only [God] who is our true Mother and source of all life may rightfully be called by this name. Nature, love, wisdom, and knowledge are all attributes of the Mother, which is God. Even though our earthly birth is low and humble … [God] is the one responsible for the birth of all babies that are born to their physical mothers.

The kind, loving mother, aware of the needs of her child, protects the child with great tenderness. This is the nature of motherhood…. Whenever a human mother nurtures her child with all that is beautiful and good, it is God-the-Mother who is acting through her

An Anchor-Hold of Love 

Monday, May 11, 2026

Father Richard recounts the circumstances of Julian’s mystical experience:  

Ever since I discovered Julian of Norwich so many decades ago, I have considered her one of my favorite mystics. Each time I return to her writings, I always find something new. Julian experienced her sixteen visions, or “showings” as she called them, all on one May night in 1373 when she was very sick and near death. As a priest held a crucifix in front of her, Julian saw Jesus suffering on the cross and heard him speaking to her for several hours. Like all mystics, she realized that what Jesus was saying about himself, he was simultaneously saying about all of reality. That is what unitive consciousness allows us to see.

Afterwards, Julian felt the need to go apart and reflect on her profound experience. She asked the bishop to enclose her in an anchor-hold, built against the side of St. Julian’s Church in Norwich, England. Julian was later named after that church. We do not know her real name, since she never signed her writing. (Talk about loss of ego!) The anchor-hold had a window into the church that allowed Julian to attend Mass and another window so she could counsel and pray over people who came to visit her. Such anchor-holds were found all over 13th- and 14th-century Europe.

Julian first wrote a short text about the showings, but then she patiently spent twenty years in contemplation and prayer, trusting God to help her discern the deeper meanings to be found in the visions. Finally, she wrote a longer text, titled Revelations of Divine Love. Julian’s interpretation of her God-experience is unlike the religious views common for most of history up to her time. It is not based in sin, shame, guilt, fear of God or hell. Instead, it is full of delight, freedom, intimacy, and cosmic hope. How did she retain such freedom? Maybe because she was not a priest, ordained to speak the party line?

As I read her words lately, what strikes me is the similarity between Julian’s time and our own. Here is how Episcopal priest and scholar Mary Earle describes Julian’s fourteenth-century context:

Julian lived at a time of vast social, [religious,] and political upheaval, incessant wars, and sweeping epidemics. Norwich, with a population of around 25,000 by 1330 … was struck viciously by the plague known as the Black Death. At its peak in the late 1340s in England, it killed approximately three-fourths of the population of Norwich. A young girl at this time, Julian was certainly affected in untold ways by this devastation. When the plague returned, she was about nineteen. [1]

In her anchor-hold, Julian certainly would have recognized the spiritual benefits of contemplation, such as the awakened ability through solitude to be personally present to divine love. Yet we must remember that she also let God’s love flow right through her to those on the street requesting her counsel, and to us through her writings.

==============

Individual Reflection

Where does the word Mother open something in your experience of God that the word Father does not — or where does it close something?

---

Group Discussion — choose one:

• What stirs in you when you hear God called Mother?
• Julian sat with one night’s vision for twenty years before she felt she understood it. What in your own life is still asking that kind of patience?
• Julian’s faith was “full of delight, freedom, intimacy, and cosmic hope” rather than sin, shame, and fear. Where have you tasted that kind of faith, and where do you still hunger for it?