“I conceived a mighty desire to receive three wounds in my life; that is to say, the wound of very contrition, the wound of kinde compassion, and the wound of willfull longing to God -”

Julian of Norwich, II (Sent to all – 12/8/98 Week 2)

In her third request, Julian goes further and also places her first two requests in perspective. Her desires to know more of the passion or to be “ill unto death” were left at the feet of God and, eventually passed from her mind. But her desire to be deeply “wounded” was with her constantly.

If she was ever to become the servant of the loving God that she wanted to be then she must first, deeply and profoundly, desire to remove all barriers that stood between her and the Divine.

In step with the Hebrews 4:12 notion of the Word as a sword, Julian asked to experience the “wound of contrition, the wound of true compassion, and the wound of sincere longing for God”. At this point in medieval thought, there was a move away from an emphasis on God as a just, angry Judge, and toward an idea of Him as a loving, caring Parent – Julian captures this second notion and recognises that this view does not rule out our need to deal with sin – it just changes the motivation. Now she wants to lessen the effect of sin in her life – not because she is afraid of God’s judgement, but rather because she does not want to offend the One she loves, and whose love she has deeply experienced in all of her life.

As she more intensely understood how much her Parent loved her and what Grace had cost, she became increasingly offended by the “Luke-warmness” of her response. She is hurt and angered by her pride, her coolness, her sense of distance and distracted-ness. God had given all – and she finds she can barely remain focussed on Him for any significant period of time. As Jesus had found when His disciples slept in the garden, or when He spoke of the foolish virgins – our spirit’s might be willing on some levels, but on others our flesh is very weak (Matthew 26).

Julian’s desire for “three wounds” might be based on the popular allegorised story of St Cecilia who had suffered death in the second or third century by receiving three blows of a sword to her neck. The martyr had been so profoundly affected by the love of God that she had been willing to follow Jesus “even unto death”. How willing are we to “follow him”? What cost are we willing to pay? Julian’s prayer is for a fire of passion to be lit in her soul, and she recognises that this is only possible through the radical re-focussing that comes from stripping away the objects she has allowed to become distractions in her life.