12/22/2015

Full Homely Divinity

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December 2015

Welcome to Full Homely Divinity, a website for the

Anglican at the Altar and especially for the Anglican in the

pew. The title of our website derives from the writings of a
6 7 8 9 10 14th century Englishwoman, Lady Julian of Norwich. We
13 14 15 16 17 launched this website on her feast day in May 2005. We have
20 21 22 23 24 now been visited by more than 1,000,000 viewers! These are
not blockbuster numbers by general web standards but, since
27 28 29 30 31 this is an entirely volunteer, unpaid effort, we find them to be
deeply gratifying, particularly when we also take into account
the comments and questions we receive from so many visitors.
And the Lord
Your interest, as well as the pleasure we have in putting it
showed me
together, are our only compensation, and you have made it all
more, a little
very worthwhile. Thank you for your support!
thing the size of
a hazelnut, on
Lady Julian was an anchoress: she lived in a room attached to
the palm of my
her parish church and said her prayers and shared her faith
hand, round like
with anyone who happened by. As an anchoress, she never
a ball. I looked
left the room she lived in, but she was not a hermit who
at it thoughtfully avoided human contact. She welcomed those who sought her
and wondered,
wisdom and advice. It could fairly be said that there was
'What is this?'
nothing at all ordinary about her lifestyle, but in fact she was a
And the answer
very ordinary person whose faith was nourished by a rule of
came, 'It is all
life, by the sacraments of the Church, and by a remarkable
that is made'. I
insight into the ways God makes himself known to us in very
marvelled that it ordinary things. In the icon in the banner above, she is
continued to
holding a hazel nut because she once said that she believed
exist and did not that all of the beauty and mystery of God's vast creation was
manifest in a tiny hazel nut.
suddenly
disintegrate; it
In her life as an anchoress, Lady Julian was trying to do what
was so small.
all Christians try to do: she was trying to understand how to
And again my
be a better Christian. Today we might speak of "holiness of
mind supplied
life". In the 14th century, the term "divinity" meant much the
the answer, 'It
same thing when used in reference to the devout Christian
exists both now
life. This was not something private and definitely not
and for ever
something otherworldly. Rather, it was, as Lady Julian

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and for ever

Full Homely Divinity

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