Wednesday
Julian and Prayer:
Questioning God & Listening to God
Asking & Questioning
Julian asks God for gifts for herself: The first gift was to enable her to know Christ’s passion.
“…it seemed to me that I had some feeling for the passion of Christ, but I still desired to have more by the grace of God.” Showings, Chapter 2, p177
Julian shows a great freedom to, as she puts it, ‘come naked, openly, familiarly’ to God. To ask ‘God of your goodness give me yourself, for you are enough for me… …only in you do I have everything.’ Chapter 5 p184 Showings
‘It is impossible that we should seek mercy and grace and not receive them.
Sanna p162 Ch 41
Seeking and asking is a true, joyful, and enduring soul-quality, a part of who we are as human beings, a quality that unites us and fastens us tight to the Divine Will at work in Creation by the sweet, internal workings of the Holy Spirit. Sanna p162-3 Ch41
“How can all be well, when our separation from you has damaged Creation so terribly?” I was hoping Christ would explain all this to me more openly and clearly, so that my sense of worry and sorrow would be eased. Sanna p128 Ch 29
The Church teaches that all these shall be eternally condemned to Hell—so how can it be possible that everything will be well?” The revelation Jesus showed me seemed to contradict what I had always been taught. Sanna p136 Ch 32
“Good Protector, I see you are the essence of truth, and I know that this is reality: we woefully fail you every day; we are guilty! I cannot escape the essence of who you are—and yet I cannot see that you blame us in any way. How can this be?” For I knew from the Church’s teaching and from my own sense of what is real that sin’s guilt hangs over humanity continually, from the first human beings all the way through history until the day we are raised up into Heaven. I could not understand how our Protector God looks at us as though we were as clean and holy as the angels in Heaven. I tried to comprehend this paradox, these two realities that are such polar opposites, but no matter how much I pondered, I could find no resolution.
Sanna p192-3 Ch 50
Listening
Finally, more than fifteen years later, I was given this spiritual message: “Do you really want to clearly see the Protector’s meaning in the showings? Well, then, learn it well: Love was God’s meaning.
Sanna p313 Ch 86
Points for reflection and prayer
- To ask like Julian: ‘God of your goodness give me yourself, for you are enough for me’. Notice how easy are you with asking God for yourself? It may be helpful to ask for the Holy Spirit’s help to do this.
- As we journey on in Holy Week – ask (or continue asking) God for the ability to face the passion as fully as you can?
- Reflect on the big questions that you want to ask, even challenge God on. Acknowledge them for yourself, then bring them to God. Asking… You may need to ask more than once (Jesus does encourage persistence in prayer), and you may need to wait.