International Women's Day 2022

Julian of Norwich is a year-round favourite and has been particularly popular in the last couple of years when her endurance of the plague in medieval Norwich and our own experiences of living in lockdown have made many turn to her for inspiration.

Unsurprisingly, Revelations of Divine Love and what little we know of Julian's life have been highlighted by lots of different people today on International Women's Day (IWD).

Lots of us were happy to wake up to find Julian featuring in the Diocese's 40 Prayers for 40 Days, asking “Just because I am a woman, must I therefore believe that I should not tell you about the goodness of God?”

IWD has always been about equality, with #IWD2022 asking us to #BreakTheBias. Durham University Library tweeted a series of shelfies of books by or about women, including Mary Seacole, Frida Kahlo and, of course, Julian.

Our friends at Anglican Religious Life share calls to pray for different communities each day, and today chose the Order of Julian of Norwich as one of them.

Some of our favourite sources were reshared too in honour of the day. Norfolk Adult Learning linked to Janina Ramirez's BBC documentary on YouTube while Tawnie Olson reminded us of the LRB podcast Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu made on Julian.

In the end, though, it's the words of the Revelations to which most of us turned today - from the picture our trustee Sally-Anne Lomas tweeted this morning that "All shall be well" to international conference New Visions of Julian of Norwich's sharing of comfort this evening: "Christ did not say, ‘You shall not be perturbed, you shall not be troubled, you shall not be distressed,’ but he said, ‘You shall not be overcome.’"

Julian's words sing out in our mind - quite literally in Sue Casson's setting, highlighted by 40 Prayers for 40 Days on YouTube: