Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) lived for many years as an anchoress or solitary in a church in Norwich, England. At the age of 30 she had fallen very ill and had experienced a series of visions, which she later recorded in Revelations of Divine Love (numerous editions), the first book in Middle English by a woman. Today being Julian's feastday as well as the day before Mothers' Day, we honor both with passages from her book describing God's love in strikingly maternal terms that are perhaps even more relevant today. They may be found here on the website of the Anglican Order of Julian of Norwich.

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57. Our Savior is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born and never shall come to birth out of Him.

58. ...The Second Person of the Trinity is our Mother in human nature in our essential creation. In Him we are grounded and rooted, and He is our Mother in mercy by taking on our fleshliness. And thus our Mother is to us various kinds of actions (in Whom our parts are kept unseparated) for in our Mother Christ, we benefit and grow, and in mercy He redeems and restores us, and, by the virtue of His Passion and His death and resurrection, He ones us to our essence. In this way, our Mother works in mercy to all His children who are submissive and obedient to Him.

59. As truly as God is our Father, so truly God is our Mother...I understood three ways of looking at motherhood in God: the first is the creating of our human nature; the second is His taking of our human nature (and ther commences the Motherhood of grace); the third is motherhood of action (and in that is a great reaching outward, by the same grace, of length and breadth and of height and depth without end) and all is one love.

60. The mother can give her child such from her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with Himself; and He does it most graciously and most tenderly with the Blessed Sacrament which is the Precious Food of true life. And with all the sweet Sacraments He supports us most mercifully and graciously.