The following was taken from The Rite for Profession of OBLATE VOWS in the Order of Julian of Norwich. 

In the year of our Lord 1373, the Third Sunday after Easter fell on the eighth day of May. In the early morning hours of that day, a thirty-year-old woman lay on her death bed somewhere in Norwich, England. Two days before, she had received the Last Rites of the Church, and now it was plain that she was at the point of death. Her parish curate was sent for, and he came with his acolyte, carrying a crucifix. The feeling was gone from her waist down, and her sight began to fail as the room grew dark. 

We do not know the baptismal name of that woman as she lay on her death bed. We do not know the name of her family or the name of her priest. What we do know is that she did not die! Instead, during the next eleven hours, she was granted a series of fifteen visions which opened to her mystical depths of understanding about God, the Holy Trinity, the Crucified Lord, and the life of Christians. Her full recovery was almost immediate, and the following evening, she was granted one final vision. She soon wrote down an account of these visions (or "showings", as she called them), and before long she had made the decision to give her whole life to meditation, prayer, and service. She became an anchoress - hermitess - and lived the rest of her life in a small cell (or anchorhold) attached to the southeast corner of the little parish church of St. Julian in Norwich. As was the custom for an anchoress of the time, she assumed the name of the patron saint of the parish church, and so became known as that great figure of late medieval mysticism: Dame Julian of Norwich.

An example from the sayings of Julian:- 
“And to all this, to bring me comfort and patience, our courteous Lord answered and said .in these words: ‘Suddenly you shall be taken from all your pain, from all your sickness, from all your discomfort and from all your sorrow. You shall come up above and you shall have me for your reward; and you shall be filled to the brim with, love and joy.’ “

The Mid-Norfolk Julian Group meets locally for contemplative prayer.  The meetings in April  are on 2nd, 16th & 30th.
For more information please contact Irene Ames locally on  688455.
 

Dear Everybody, hello again.

You’ve heard the term “forgive and forget”.  Well, it didn’t happen to me the other way round.  I forgot, and wasn’t forgiven.

I’ve just got a new computer.  Could I remember the passwords I’d used before?  No.  So I’ve had to set up a new email address, which is davidhead@beeb.net, should you want to contact me that way.  I must have tried any number of combinations of likely letters, and all the seven-letter words I could think of, but the machine refused to forgive me.  No password meant no access.

I guess the same is true about PIN (Personal Identification Number) numbers for bank cards.  I remembered two, and then the more I had, it didn’t matter, I forgot them.  I still only remember two.  Try getting them wrong.  The machine does not forgive.

How about forgiveness, both human and divine?  There’s no machinery about it, the forgiver has a choice.  But I think it’s easier to be forgiven if we remember what we’ve done, and we understand why it was wrong.  If you have wronged a friend, and you say airily: “Don’t worry, I’ve forgotten about it”, they are less likely to forgive you, because you don’t seem to be taking it seriously.  In order for others to forgive and forget, we need to remember and be forgiven.  

Easter time is an ideal time to remember and be forgiven.  One purpose of the crucifixion and Easter was that Christians should see that God really means to forgive us.  But for all of us, Easter is an opportunity to forgive and to restore relationships.

God bless you all this Easter.  

David Head