Perseverance

“Be it unto me according to your word.” Julian may not have recited the Angelus in the form that we know it today, but she would certainly have assented to Mary’s statement. Her own love of Christ one-d her in love to Jesus as Mary’s did with her own son. “Here I saw a great one-ing between Christ and us, as I understand it, for when He was in pain, we were in pain.”

We assume that Julian gladly took up her anchorhold — it was no doubt a very serious undertaking accompanied by a very serious liturgy — but she assented with all her being that it was “according to your word.”

In her Revelations, as Jesus’s expression on the Cross suddenly changed to one of joy, so Julian’s changed likewise “and I was as glad and merry as I could be.” Her serious undertaking of the anchoritic life was in the spirit of Our Lady’s undertaking to bear God’s Son — and of course in the spirit of Our Lord’s following through His Father’s will until the bitter end.

Assent and perseverance: a simple formula to say but one which costs a great deal to carry out. And one whose evidence is slow to be manifested. But when one does in fact notice that a tiny change has happened in one’s soul, then one feels for a wonderful moment “as glad and merry as I could be.”