“All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well.”
Those are the words of Julian of Norwich, 14th century holy woman and Christian mystic. Julian was inspired when she wrote those reassuring words. But her words are often misunderstood to be merely an optimistic counterweight to the trials and tribulations of life. Rather, her meaning comes from what her biographer Veronica Mary Rolf attributes to “her courageous faith, her hard-won hope, and most of all, her profound realization that ultimately, because God is love, all shall be well.”
Julian’s theology grew out of her own mystical experiences when, at the age of thirty, she fell ill with the Black Plague that was sweeping Europe. Her writings emphasize the goodness and love of God, especially in times of great suffering and darkness. The Renovare spiritual direction team cites joy as the main point throughout all of Julian’s writing: a joy that draws one into a deep understanding of the goodness of God.
Though we go through the fire and all may, at times, seem lost, God’s love surrounds us and is bringing us home; a home where, in the end, either in this life or the next, that which is broken will be made whole again, and all shall be well. Our soul intuitively knows this, and, in moments of spiritual clarity, our intellect knows it as well.
This truth has been reinforced for me over the last few years. My soulmate, my sweetheart Wanda, is undergoing treatment for a rare and aggressive uterine cancer. Two years of chemotherapy were unsuccessful, and she is now undergoing immunotherapy. I myself have been living with progressive and incurable Parkinson’s disease.
Illness has brought us challenges but also gifts. There is clarity that there’s more to life than our personal time and space; and there is knowledge of the fullness of life and love in the present moment. There is trust that God unconditionally loves us, and that either in this life or the next, God will find a way to heal us and make us whole. There is the knowledge and the trust that all shall be well. Julian of Norwich was so right.
This brings to mind a reflection I previously shared with the parishioners of Mount Carmel about a family project I was finally able to complete. About 20 years ago, I selected the best photographs from 65 albums of family pictures and digitized them onto one three-hour video with background music. I called it The Ferrauiola Family Video Special.
The video begins with photos of my wife Wanda’s and my parents and grandparents and scenes from our childhood. It goes on through our teens, our high school romance, the early years of our marriage, the arrival of each of our four children and our grandchildren, and many special moments from our life together over the past 54 years.
Sitting with Wanda in our family room and watching the video is a real joy for me. Seeing our marriage and our children weave and grow together across the years fills me with thanksgiving for my life. But along with the joyful times there have been difficult days: the challenges of raising four children, of work, of illness, of life. I know that if I could drill down and see scenes that didn’t make it to the camera, I would see moments of anxiety and doubt. But sitting in our family room with my arm around Wanda, smiling and laughing as we watch 54 years of life and love roll across the TV screen, it’s clear to me that God’s grace and love have always been with us.
Now think about your own life and the life of every person who has ever lived and will live in the future and of all the videos that could be made from all those individual stories. What if they were made and someone edited them together into one big video called The Story of the Human Family? And what if someday, after we’ve died and been reunited with our loved ones who have gone before us, God gets us all together into that big family room in heaven to watch The Story of the Human Family?
As we watch the story unfold, we would see moments of goodness, kindness, and love. Sadly, we would also see moments of anger, pain, and sorrow. But sitting with our loved ones in the presence of God, beyond the boundaries of time and space and the limits of human understanding, we would know that God’s grace had carried us through.
But we’re not there yet; and that’s where faith comes in. You see, we’re here in 2021 and we’re still making the videos. We may be in the middle of a happy time or a painful time; we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and we certainly don’t know how the story will end.
But we are here today because we have faith. We trust that no matter what difficulties or tragedies befall us as individuals, as a family, a church, or a nation, they are only isolated moments in time. We trust that in the end God’s grace will pull us through, heal us and fix whatever is broken in our lives.
Some day we will all gather in God’s eternal family room with our loved ones, the ones here now and the ones who have gone home before us. And we will watch a wonderful story, the story of our journey home. And we will know that we were never, ever alone; that God was always walking beside us, holding our hand.
In the end, all shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well. “
❤️ With love,
Deacon Lex
