Ep 13 - The Anent Reflections, Part One - All Shall Be Well w/ Kris McGregor

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All Shall Be Well: A Journey Through Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love with Kris McGregor

Episode 13: The Anent Reflections, Part One — Mercy, Wrath, and Peace

Summary:

In this episode, we begin Julian of Norwich’s Anent reflections, a meditative pause in her Revelations of Divine Love. Instead of recounting new visions, Julian turns inward to contemplate the truths already revealed to her. These reflections open a contemplative space filled with theology and spiritual insight, helping us see what God has shown her more clearly.

We explore Julian’s teaching on God as unchanging Truth, Wisdom, and Love, and how our souls are created to share in those very attributes. We also reflect on her striking claim that there is no wrath in God — only goodness and mercy. Julian teaches that our judgment is distorted by sin, but God’s gaze remains fixed on the soul as He created it, whole and beloved.

Julian then introduces five inner movements of the soul: enjoying, mourning, desire, dread, and sure hope. Each one reveals a layer of the soul’s journey with God and helps us understand how grace is at work, even in moments of struggle.

Finally, we hear her deep assurance that God’s mercy never ceases. No matter how often we fail, fall, or fear, His gaze of love never turns away. In God’s sight, the soul that belongs to Him has never died, nor ever shall.

For other episodes in this series visit: All Shall Be Well: A Journey Through Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love with Kris McGregor

Full Julian of Norwich Quotations Used in Episode 13:

From Revelations of Divine Love, Long Text, Chapters 41-43, trans. Grace Warrack, Methuen & Co., 1901 (PDF edition).

Truth, Wisdom, and Love

“Truth seeth God, and Wisdom beholdeth God, and of these two cometh the third: that is, a holy marvellous delight in God; which is Love. Where Truth and Wisdom are verily, there is Love verily, coming of them both. And all of God’s making: for He is endless sovereign Truth, endless sovereign Wisdom, endless sovereign Love, unmade; and man’s Soul is a creature in God which hath the same properties made, and evermore it doeth that it was made for: it seeth God, it beholdeth God, and it loveth God. Whereof God enjoyeth in the creature; and the creature in God, endlessly marvelling.” (Ch. 44)

God’s Judgment and Ours

GOD deemeth us [looking] upon our Nature-Substance, which is ever kept one in Him, whole and safe without end: and this doom is [because] of His rightfulness [in the which it is made and kept]. And man judgeth [looking] upon our changeable Sense-soul, which seemeth now one [thing], now other,—according as it taketh of the [higher or lower] parts,—and [is that which] showeth outward. And this wisdom [of man’s judgment] is mingled [because of the diverse things it beholdeth]. For sometimes it is good and easy, and sometimes it is hard and grievous. And in as much as it is good and easy it belongeth to the rightfulness; and in as much as it is hard and grievous [by reason of the sin beheld, which sheweth in our Sense-soul,] our good Lord Jesus reformeth it by [the working in our Sense-soul of] mercy and grace through the virtue of His blessed Passion, and so bringeth it to the rightfulness.” (Ch.45)

God Is Not Wroth

“For I saw truly that it is against the property of His Might to be wroth, and against the property of His Wisdom, and against the property of His Goodness. God is the Goodness that may not be wroth, for He is not [other] but Goodness: our soul is oned to Him, unchangeable Goodness, and between God and our soul is neither wrath nor forgiveness in His sight. For our soul is so fully oned to God of His own Goodness that between God and our soul may be right nought.” (Ch. 46)

The Five Workings of the Soul

“For I felt in me five manner of workings, which be these: Enjoying, mourning, desire, dread, and sure hope. Enjoying: for God gave me understanding and knowing that it was Himself that I saw; mourning: and that was for failing; desire: and that was I might see Him ever more and more, understanding and knowing that we shall never have full rest till we see Him verily and clearly in heaven; dread was: for it seemed to me in all that time that that sight should fail, and I be left to myself; sure hope was in the endless love: that I saw I should be kept by His mercy and brought to His bliss. And the joying in His sight with this sure hope of His merciful keeping made me to have feeling and comfort so that mourning and dread were not greatly painful.”(Ch. 47)

The Working of Mercy

“Mercy is a sweet gracious working in love, mingled with plenteous pity: for mercy worketh in keeping us, and mercy worketh turning to us all things to good. Mercy, by love, suffereth us to fail in measure and in as much as we fail, in so much we fall; and in as much as we fall, in so much we die: for it needs must be that we die in so much as we fail of the sight and feeling of God that is our life. Our failing is dreadful, our falling is shameful, and our dying is sorrowful: but in all this the sweet eye of pity and love is lifted never off us, nor the working of mercy ceaseth.” (Ch. 48)

Where God Appears, Wrath Has No Place

“For I saw full surely that where our Lord appeareth, peace is taken and wrath hath no place. For I saw no manner of wrath in God, neither for short time nor for long; for in sooth, as to my sight, if God might be wroth for an instant, we should never have life nor place nor being. For as verily as we have our being of the endless Might of God and of the endless Wisdom and of the endless Goodness, so verily we have our keeping in the endless Might of God, in the endless Wisdom, and in the endless Goodness. For though we feel in ourselves, frail wretches, debates and strifes, yet are we all-mannerful enclosed in the mildness of God and in His meekness, in His benignity and in His graciousness. For I saw full surely that all our endless friendship, our place, our life and our being, is in God.” (Ch. 49)

Mercy and Forgiveness: The Soul Never Dies

AND in this life mercy and forgiveness is our way and evermore leadeth us to grace. And by the tempest and the sorrow that we fall into on our part, we be often dead as to man’s doom in earth; but in the sight of God the soul that shall be saved was never dead, nor ever shall be.” ” (Ch. 50)

Scripture Featured

(Translations used: Revised Standard Version [RSV-CE] )

(Zephaniah 3:17)

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

(1 Samuel 16:7)

“Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

(James 1:17)

“Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

(Exodus 34:6–7)

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.”

(1 Peter 1:8–9)

“Though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy. As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls.”

(Psalm 42:1–2)

“As a hart (deer) longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

(2 Corinthians 4:7)

“We have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.”

(1 Thessalonians 5:16–18)

“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

(Hebrews 10:23)

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

(Luke 1:54–55)

“He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity for ever.”

(Lamentations 3:22–23)

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.”

(Ephesians 2:14)

“For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.”

(John 11:25–26)

“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church

“The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for.” (CCC 27)

“The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.” (CCC 2563)

“God is infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life.” (CCC 1)

“The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners.” (CCC 1846)

“There are no limits to the mercy of God.” (CCC 1864)

“By revealing himself to Moses, God reveals that he is rich in mercy and fidelity. God is Love. His very being is Love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.” (CCC 214, 221)

“By his death Christ liberates us from sin; by his Resurrection, he opens for us the way to a new life.” (CCC 654)

Teachings of the Saints

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross:

“The deeper one is drawn into God, the more one must go out of oneself; that is, one must go to the world in order to carry the divine life into it.” (Essays on Woman, “The Separate Vocations of Man and Woman According to Nature and Grace”)

St. John of the Cross:

“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” (Sayings of Light and Love, 64)

St. Augustine of Hippo:

“The wrath of God is not a disturbed feeling of His mind, but a judgment by which punishment is inflicted upon sin.” (City of God, XV.25)

St. John Chrysostom:

“When you hear that God is angry in the Scriptures, do not suppose that God is subject to some passion. Such expressions are condescensions, teaching us that His acts of punishment are the consequence of our sins.”(Homilies on Genesis, 6:6)

St. Faustina Kowalska:

“Let the sinner not be afraid to approach Me. The flames of mercy are burning Me—clamoring to be spent; I want to pour them out upon these souls.” (Diary, 50)

St. Teresa of Ávila:

“Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things are passing; God never changes. Patience obtains all things. He who has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.” (Poem: Nada te turbe)

St. Gregory of Nyssa:

“For it is not when we begin to exist, but when we are joined to God, that we truly live.” (On the Soul and the Resurrection)

Reflection Questions for Prayer

1. Julian insists that wrath has no place in God. How does this challenge the way you may have imagined His response to your sins or failings?
2. She teaches that mercy never ceases and that God’s gaze of love never leaves us. Where in your life do you most need to trust this truth?
3. Julian ends by assuring us that in God’s sight, the soul He loves never dies. How might this hope shape the way you endure trials and sorrow in this life?

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,
You who are endless Truth, Wisdom, and Love,
draw us into Your peace,
where wrath has no place and mercy never ceases.
When we fail, lift us with Your pity;
when we fall, keep us in Your forgiveness;
when we fear death, remind us that in You we live forever.
Let us rest in Your unchanging goodness,
until the day we see You face to face
and rejoice with You in the fullness of love.

Amen.

Ep 13 – The Anent Reflections, Part One – All Shall Be Well w/ Kris McGregor – Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts