Juliana

The Corona Virus of 2020 has brought a devastation of life and economy very few of us have seen in our lifetime. As many as 500,000 people may die before the pandemic is fully arrested, but can you imagine a pandemic so horrible and so deadly that 25 million people died? It took place over a four-year period from 1347 to 1351 and was called the Black Death or the Great Plague. By the time it was over, half the population of Europe had been wiped out.

Julian of Norwich was herself a victim of the deadly epidemic. Born in 1342, she was five-years-old when the plague swept through her home town in East Anglia, taking the life of her beloved mother. Through the grace of God, Julian would servive to enter the novitiate of a Benedictine convent and eventually become a highly revered Anchoress and Spiritual Director to countless hundreds who sought her advice.

This historical fiction, JULIANA, tells her story and the story of the young woman she befriended and guided by the name of Maggie. In the book, Maggie or Margery Kempe was physically abused by her own father, a prominent figure as the mayor of Bishop's Lynn. From such dark and desperate threads, this amazing mystic of the 14th century would weave a tapestry of incomparable beauty and hope. In these deadly and uncertain days of pandemic, do we not need now just such a path of light?