Julian of Norwich and Ecological Consciousness
On Saturday, we will be celebrating the Feast Day of Julian of Norwich with our annual Julian Festival.
High Mass will be celebrated at St Julian's Church, and then at noon there will be a lecture on Julian of Norwich and Ecological Consciousness by Dr Claire Foster-Gilbert, Director of the Westminster Abbey Institute. All are welcome - just turn up on the day.
If you can't make it to Norwich, you can stream the events from the comfort of your own home. Links to do so are here, on our Julian Festival Links and Resources page.
Dr Foster-Gilbert is not very active on social media, but she did take the time to share her thoughts as she prepares her talk on Veronica Mary Rolf's Facebook Group (The Julian of Norwich Group):
"I am looking forward with some trepidation to delivering the annual Julian lecture next week. It's going to be about ecological consciousness and how Julian can help us with that. I think - don't we all - that she has so much to say to our times of pestilence and war and deep unease, and one of them is showing us how to be with nature and each other so we will cease the harm that we do. She shows us a way of looking that is porous, not separate, from what she and we see. Her encounters are so direct and her writing draws us into the same direct, visceral encounter - feeling the world the size of a hazelnut on the palm of our hand; entering Jesus's side through his wound and feeling his love from his inside; receiving his body and blood as we received our mother's milk, feeling that mother's love - and that transforms us. Julian doesn't present arguments but changes us by her poetic writing. And being transformed into people who feel the deep connection between all of us and nature is what is so badly needed now, so that the solutions we bring to our terrifying ecological crisis are not controlling, technological, colonial, but humble, grateful, born of a feeling of service and love. Oh the industrial revolution, amazing though it was, has brought us so much trouble! Enslaving us to a technological, controlling mindset. I say that Julian offers us an escape route from our separated, lonely, fearful lives. Wonderful woman" (29 April, 2022, https://www.facebook.com/groups/448593398565018/permalink/5010679985689647/)
See more public Facebook posts about the Festival at #JulianFestival