Listen

“God cannot be angry. It would be impossible…. Thus I was taught that love was our Lord’s meaning. And I saw full certainly in this … that before God made us, He loved us, and this love was never slackened nor ever shall be.”

Julian was not much listened to until the mid-twentieth century. Now she has many, many admirers for whom her writing is a guide for their daily lives. “Prefer nothing to the love of Christ,” says St Benedict in the tools of good works, and again nearly at the end of his Rule. Many, many monks and nuns all over the world try to live according to his direction.

But how many, many people in the world heed neither Julian nor Benedict — in the sense of trying to understand the life-giving principle which Julian and Benedict are putting forward. What can a Julian-lover do to help? How could a Julian-lover get a leader bent on attaining goals through violence even to listen, let alone understand? How many politicians? How many consumers? How many advertisers?

The frustration itself is part and parcel of the problem — we are anxious for instant results. Yet how very slowly the world has changed from its very beginnings! Illustrated time-lines of our world’s and its inhabitants’ development arise before our eyes — oh, the slowness of it. But … change did occur and still occurs. Just keep on reading and heeding.