In Chapter 17, Julian continues her prolonged meditation upon the dying and dead body of Jesus. It gets pretty intense as she describes Christ's hanging body, the widening of the wounds, the discoloration, and the drying out of the body she described in Chapter 16. It's a grim read.
The showing overwhelms Julian. In Chapter 2, she had asked to experience, sympathetically, Christ's pains upon the cross. And as she does so in this showing, she comes to regret that choice:
Than thowte me, I knew but litil what payne it was that I askyd, and as a wretch repentid me, thynkand if I had wiste what it had be, lothe me had be to have praydd it.
Translation:
Then I thought to myself, "I knew but little about what pain it was that I had asked for, and like a wretch I repented, thinking if I had known what it would be, I would have been loath to have prayed for it."
But the deeper pain that Julian comes to feel isn't the sympathetic pain of Christ's sufferings. Rather, it's the pain of watching someone you love die. She cries out:
I thowte, Is any payne like this? And I was answered in my reason: Helle is another payne, for there is despeyr. But of al paynes that leden to salvation, this is the most payne: to se thy love suffir. How might any payne be more to me than to se Him that is al my life, al my blisse, and al my joy suffren? Here felt I sothfastly that I lovyd Criste so mech above myselfe that there was no payne that might be suffrid leke to that sorow that I had to se Him in payne.
Translation:
I thought, “Is there any pain like this?” And I was answered in my reason: “Hell is another pain, for there is despair. But of all pains that lead to salvation, this is the most painful: to see your beloved suffer. How could any pain be more to me than to see Him who is all my life, all my bliss, and all my joy suffering?” Here I truly felt that I loved Christ so much above myself that there was no pain that might be suffered like that sorrow that I had in seeing Him in pain.
A question we'll consider going forward, a perennial one about Julian, is whether Julian was a universalist. There is material in her Revelations for both sides of that debate. And in this passage we see a bit of the evidence for "no" in her description of hell as another kind of pain because despair is added to that pain. Julian's pain, by contrast, is a pain that "leads to salvation." But it's also the most painful pain because it's the pain of witnessing the pain of one you love.
Again, all this is very distant, and even alien, from modern Christian sensibilities. But in medieval spirituality, vicarious suffering with Christ on the cross was a path of mystical union. And there is biblical precedent. Paul speaks of knowing Christ by "sharing of his sufferings" (Phil. 3:10).
What is striking in Julian, though, is where this identification brings her by the end of the chapter. Julian's deepest pain is seeing the one she loves suffering. And that pain becomes an expression of love. Julian discovers that the more she loves Christ, the more deeply his pain becomes her pain. Which might provide a bridge to our modern sensibilities. Love makes another's suffering matter to us to the point that it becomes our own. To love so deeply that the greatest pain we might experience is the pain of those we love.
