Julian of Norwich Quotes on Happiness
For Julian of Norwich, happiness is fundamentally joy in God, and the quotes gathered here, drawn from her Revelations of Divine Love, present it in the language of mirth, bliss, and gladness. Julian reports that the greatest honour a person can give God is simply to live gladly because of the knowledge of His love, and her visions are suffused with a cheerfulness that she insists can outweigh every earthly pain. She does not deny sin or sorrow, indeed she sees them clearly, but holds that those who shall be saved live in the joy of God without end, and that the sight of God's blissful countenance would make all things joy and bliss. Happiness, in her theology, is the soul's natural response to divine love.
Quotes
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Attributed to Julian of Norwich:
“The greatest honour we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of His love.”
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“This is a Revelation of Love that Jesus Christ , our endless bliss, made in Sixteen Shewings, or Revelations particular. Of the which the First is of His precious crowning with thorns; and therewith was comprehended and specified the Trinity, with the Incarnation, and unity betwixt God and man's soul ; with many fair shewings of endless wisdom and teachings of love: in which all the Shewings that follow be grounded and oned.”
First lines -
“We shall suddenly be taken from all our pain and from all our woe, and of His Goodness we shall come up above, where we shall have our Lord Jesus for our meed and be fulfilled with joy and bliss in Heaven.”
Wikiquote -
“With this same cheer of mirth and joy our good Lord looked down on the right side and brought to my mind where our Lady stood in the time of His Passion; and said: Wilt thou see her?”
Chapter 25 -
“Because of this great, endless love that God hath to all Mankind, He maketh no disparting in love between the blessed Soul of Christ and the least soul that shall be saved.”
Chapter 54 -
“Now behoveth me to tell in what manner I saw sin deadly in the creatures which shall not die for sin, but live in the joy of God without end.”
Chapter 72 -
“The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Chapter 13 -
“Here saw I verily that if He shewed now us His Blissful Cheer, there is no pain in earth or in other place that should aggrieve us; but all things should be to us joy and bliss.”
Chapter 21 -
“Through this sight of the blessed Passion, with the Godhead that I saw in mine understanding, I knew well that It was strength enough for me, yea, and for all creatures living, against all the fiends of hell and ghostly temptation.”
Chapter 4 -
“The cause why He suffereth is for He will of His goodness make us the higher with Him in His bliss; and for this little pain that we suffer here, we shall have an high endless knowing in God which we could never have without that.”
Chapter 21 -
“He gave me understanding of two parts. The one part is our Saviour and our salvation. This blessed part is open and clear and fair and light, and plenteous, — for all mankind that is of good will, and shall be, is comprehended in this part.”
Chapter 30 -
“Thus signifieth He where He saith: I am Ground of thy beseeching. And thus in this blessed word, with the Shewing, I saw a full overcoming against all our weakness and all our doubtful dreads.”
Chapter 42