Mother Julian – 8th May (her feast day) II

The Rev’d Richard Woodham makes a mini-pilgrimage (continued):

I couldn’t help thinking, as i passed the Lollards’ Pit on my way from Mother Julian’s cell to Norwich Cathedral for festal evensong, “They would have been lucky to get a fire going on a day like today. Rain stops play ? I don’t suppose so!”

One imagines the Black Death raised issues around the efficacy of the sacraments for those who survived. Could those who had come to doubt the value of Church rituals have grasped what Mother Julian had understood – that “Love was his meaning”? Perhaps so!

But those who had condemned them to the stake seemed to have no understanding, at all! At least, not of the understanding that sacraments are outward and visible signs of inwards and spiritual grace – chief of which is Love!

Festal Evensong, sung at the heart of this place, felt out of this world. By the time the procession had arrived outside the West Front, for final prayers before the statue of Mother Julian it had (miraculously?!) stopped raining.