"for treuly our lover desireth that our soule cleve to Hym"
In Chapter 6 of The Revelations Julian ponders how prayer, at her time, invoked many intermediaries, from the Holy Cross to Mary to the saints. But what Julian perceives in each and every intermediary is the goodness of God. As she writes: "Wherefore it pleaseth [pleases] Him that we seke [seek] Him and worship be [by] menys [means or helps], understondyng [understanding] and knoweing that He is the goodness of all."
And it is this seeking after His goodness, continues Julian, that God most desires. As she says: "for treuly [truly] our lover desireth [desires] that our soule cleve [cleave] to Hym [Him] with all the might and that we be evermore clevand [cleaved] to His godenes [goodness]."
This is the first time Julian calls God our "Lover" in The Revelations. It will become a common description going forward, and it highlights the romantic aspect of Julian's spirituality. By using erotic imagery—God as our lover—Julian stands solidly within the contemplative tradition. For example, the most famous treatise of the Christian mystical tradition, St. John of the Cross' The Dark Night of the Soul, is a commentary upon an erotic love poem entitled "Stanzas of the Soul." I shared this during my series on the Psalms, David Lewis's translation of St. John's poem:
I.
In a dark night,
With anxious love inflamed,
O, happy lot!
Forth unobserved I went,
My house being now at rest.
II.
In darkness and in safety,
By the secret ladder, disguised,
O, happy lot!
In darkness and concealment,
My house being now at rest.
III.
In that happy night,
In secret, seen of none,
Seeing nought myself,
Without other light or guide
Save that which in my heart was burning.
IV.
That light guided me
More surely than the noonday sun
To the place where He was waiting for me,
Whom I knew well,
And where none appeared.
V.
O, guiding night;
O, night more lovely than the dawn;
O, night that hast united
The lover with His beloved,
And changed her into her love.
VI.
On my flowery bosom,
Kept whole for Him alone,
There He reposed and slept;
And I cherished Him, and the waving
Of the cedars fanned Him.
VII.
As His hair floated in the breeze
That from the turret blew,
He struck me on the neck
With His gentle hand,
And all sensation left me.
VIII.
I continued in oblivion lost,
My head was resting on my love;
Lost to all things and myself,
And, amid the lilies forgotten,
Threw all my cares away.
The lover goes out into the night for a moonlight tryst with the Beloved. St. John of the Cross uses the romantic rendezvous to expound upon "the way and manner which the soul follows upon the road of the union of love with God."
Julian echos the same romantic longing when she writes, "For truly our Lover desires that our soul cleave to Him."
