Book Description

In Showing of Love, Julia Bolton Holloway provides a complete translation of Julian of Norwich's ground-breaking text, opening windows of insight into her medieval world. As a female mystic and theologian who was uniquely recognized (in a time when most women were not) for her holiness, Julian of Norwich also came to be known as a catechist, prophet, and spiritual director. Showing of Love records her own healing encounter with divine love and has for many centuries been a source of healing and inspiration for others. Readers of Julian's work find her belief that God sits in our soul as a fair city to be of profound value. That city is every city, Mary its queen, Christ its king. Julian offers these layers in rich text and variant readings. Julian dedicated years of her life to shaping Showing of Love, at the end rewriting it to preserve it from censorship. The anchoress lived in St. Julian's churchyard in Norwich. Her text was saved from destruction by nuns in Brigittine and Benedictine convents, first in England, then in exile after the Reformation. Julian's writings were later published by the Benedictines in 1670. They reveal her strong links with Benedict that continue to have lasting value for readers today. Includes two-color ink on inside pages. Julia Bolton Holloway, PhD, is a vowed hermit living in Florence, Italy. She has published seventeen other works on important historical figures.