How comfortable are we with female imagery for God? Or open to the idea of a divine mother longing for an ever-closer relationship with her children?

In this talk, Bess Brooks explores the life and writings of 14th/15th century theologian Julian of Norwich. Julian’s work, Revelations of Divine Love, records her visions of Jesus during a life-threatening illness, and her own reflections on those “showings” over the following decades.  In doing so, Julian paints of picture of the divine, thirsty motherhood of Jesus. Paradoxically, mother Jesus longs to nourish his/her children, while also experiencing continuous thirst for them. In Julian’s depiction, Jesus does indeed feed his/her children through the Eucharist, yet always lovingly yearns for an even closer relationship with those offspring.

Bess sets her exploration of Julian’s work in the context the COVID-19 pandemic. She critically examines the reality of Eucharistic loss during that time - a period when people could not gather together for worship, and when the Church of England issued guidance against the celebration of the Eucharist online. How might the idea of the thirsty motherhood of Jesus inform Anglican Eucharistic behaviour in future pandemics?

Bess concludes her talk with Julian of Norwich’s hope-filled understanding of the end times when the loving thirst that Jesus has for his/her children will be fully satisfied, as will the longing those children have for the divine mother.

Bess Brooks is an Anglican Lay Minister at St Paul’s Tervuren and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven.