The World's Christians. Douglas Jacobsen

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СКАЧАТЬ rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_6ec842fe-b579-5c01-b802-4faa7f22a2a3">Voices of World Christianity 2.2 Julian of Norwich on God’s Love for Humankind

       Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) was an anchorite who lived her entire adult life seeking the presence of God in a small doorless room (an “anchorhold”) built onto the side wall of St. Julian’s Church in Norwich, England. Very little is known about her. Even her name is a mystery, since Julian is likely a reference to the church where she lived and not her given name. Despite this anonymity, Julian is historically important. She was the first woman to write a book in the English language, and the subject of that book is God’s love. This excerpt, taken from her Showings (which is also known by the title Revelations of Divine Love), describes God’s affection for humankind using both masculine and feminine imagery.

      Excerpt from Showings (1413):

      [God] showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying on the palm of my hand and I perceived that it was as round as any ball. I looked at it and thought: What can this be? And I was given the general answer: It is everything which is made. I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that it was so little that it could suddenly fall into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it, and thus everything has being through the love of God …

      And so in our making, God almighty is our loving Father, and God all wisdom is our loving Mother, with the love and goodness of the Holy Spirit, which is all one God, one Lord. And in the joining and the union he is our very true spouse and we his beloved wife and his fair maiden, with which he will never be displeased, for he says: I love you and you love me, and our love will never divide in two.

       I contemplated the work of all the blessed Trinity, in which contemplation I saw and understood these three properties: the property of the fatherhood, and the property of the motherhood, and the property of the lordship in one God …

      The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life; and with all the sweet sacraments he sustains us most mercifully and graciously.

      Julian of Norwich: Showings, trans. Edmund College and James Walsh (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), pp. 130, 293, 298.

      As in Orthodoxy, salvation within the Catholic tradition is understood to be a process rather than an event. That process begins with the sacrament of baptism which undoes the damage of original sin and which makes it possible once again to trust and love God. Overcoming various specific sins takes place through the sacrament of penance and reconciliation. This sacrament provides both a remedy for the sins people commit and a mechanism for moral advancement in the Christian life. Individuals first acknowledge the wrong they have done, then express sorrow (contrition) for their sins, and finally seek to “make satisfaction,” righting the wrong that has resulted from their actions. The church, through a priest, assures penitent individuals that their sins have been forgiven through the sacrifice of Christ’s death.

The lifelong pattern of penance and reconciliation is called conversion or sometimes “conversion of the heart.” This kind of conversion requires the death of the prideful self and the strict disciplining of one’s desires and actions. It also necessarily involves pain and sadness for sin. Devout Catholics try to foster the process of conversion in their own lives through various acts of devotion and self‐sacrifice, which can include saying the rosary (a sequence of prayers and meditations related to Christ and the Virgin Mary, often undertaken with the help of prayer beads), meditating on the stations of the cross (fourteen events associated with Christ’s condemnation and crucifixion that are depicted in sculptures or paintings on the side walls of most Catholic churches), fasting, and occasionally even physical self‐punishment. Some Catholics consecrate themselves entirely to God by taking religious vows and becoming monks or nuns. Other Catholics seek conversion of their hearts through prayer, meditation, service to others, and other good works that laypeople can undertake without adopting all the rigors and restrictions of monastic life.

The most important spiritual aid to conversion within the Catholic Church is, without doubt, participation in the Eucharist. This is reflected in the architecture of the Catholic church building, with all the architectural lines of vision pointing toward the altar at the front of the sanctuary where the Eucharist is celebrated (see Figure 2.3). The word “Eucharist” itself means thanksgiving, and the eucharistic celebration is a way both to participate in and to give thanks for Christ’s sacrifice which makes salvation possible.

      Catholics believe that the bread and wine of the Eucharist literally become the body and blood of Christ as a result of the prayer that is said by the priest during mass (the Catholic service of worship where the Eucharist is celebrated). Holding his hands over the bread and wine, the priest says: “Bless and approve our offering; make it acceptable to you, an offering in spirit and in truth. Let it become for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ, your only Son, our Lord.” As the unleavened wafer (called a host) is ingested, Catholics believe that Christ literally feeds their souls through the holiness of Christ’s own body. Some devout Catholics participate in mass every day. Mother Teresa, the saintly humanitarian from Calcutta, often said that the Eucharist was her spiritual food and that she could not get through a single day without it.

Figure 2.3 Interior of the Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (Los Angeles, California) with arrows indicating how the architecture of the sanctuary emphasizes the centrality of the altar and the importance of the Eucharist.

      Photo by author.

Holiness is the final goal of conversion, sufficient holiness that one can stand in God’s presence and not be ashamed. Since most Catholics do not achieve such holiness while still living on earth, the idea slowly developed within Catholicism that there must be some place or some spiritual mechanism that allows individuals to acquire the level of holiness needed to enter heaven after death. That place or spiritual mechanism is called purgatory. There is only scant reference to purgatory in the Bible, but Catholics view this doctrine as a necessary extension of other Christian and biblical teachings about salvation and holiness.

The Catholic Church has also wrestled with the question of whether salvation is available in any form outside the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Historically, the most common answer has been “no,” but starting in the sixteenth century, some Catholic theologians began to articulate the possibility that some people who are outside the Catholic Church, even some who have never heard of Christ, might potentially end up in heaven because their lives demonstrate a “desire for baptism.” Karl Rahner, one of the most important Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, called such people “anonymous Christians.” The Catholic Catechism itself acknowledges the possibility of this wider scope of salvation by saying that while “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of baptism … he himself is not bound by his sacraments.”⁶

The wideness of God’s mercy is also a common theme in Catholic folk culture, where it is often expressed through the image of Mary as mediatrix of God’s grace and forgiveness. A popular folk story tells of Jesus strolling through heaven and СКАЧАТЬ