March 2005 Christian Spirituality      Continued from previous issue By George A Lane SJ

Continue from ...... RELIGIOUS CLIMATE OF THE LATER MIDDLE AGES There is one English mystic who should be singled out momentarily, for she is an exception to the mystical tradition around her in the fourteenth century. Dame Julian of Norwich wrote only one work, The Revelations of Divine Love. Because of its theological depth and great poetic beauty, this work is perhaps the greatest single piece of devotional writing in the English language. Dame Julian's mysticism does not take her into herself, but out to others. She stresses the great wonders of God, a God that acts in history and controls this history, and who will make all things well in the end. Her basic theme is confidence in the divine love as the ultimate reality behind the universe and in the midst of the history of the world. Up to this point we have concentrated on particular schools of spirituality and on certain religious communities. Now we want to widen the focus and present a brief overview of the spirituality of the people at large in the late Middle Ages, some characteristics of the popular religious imagination of the time. There was at this time a general all-prevailing desire and attempt to raise all the details of daily life to the level of the sacred and to find religious meaning in the most commonplace activity. We have here one solution to the problem of how to justify action that is not contemplation; it is a practical, not a theoretical solution. There is not an object or an action, however trivial, that is not constantly correlated with Christ and salvation. Bl. Henry Suso, for example, would eat three-quarters of an apple in the name of the Trinity, and the remaining quarter in commemoration of the love with which the heavenly Mother gave her tender child Jesus an apple to eat. And for this reason he eats the last quarter with the paring, as little boys do not peel their apples. After Christmas he does not eat it, for then the infant Jesus was too young to eat apples. This sounds humorous, but it points out a certain spirit which pervades the popular religious imagination of this period. It is an attempt to superimpose religious significance on all the events in which one is engaged. The effort is psychologically impossible, and it leads neither to a genuine prayer life nor to effective performance of day-to-day activities. Only the schizophrenic could live this theory out perfectly.

- To Be Continued -