“All shall be well.” This is from a famous saying by Julian of Norwich (1342-1416), one of England’s most venerated Christian mystics. Here’s the saying, as she wrote it, in the language of her time:
“But alle shalle be wele, and alle shalle be wele, and alle maner of thynge shalle be wele.”
I’ve known about this saying for a long time, but it was only when I looked into its context today, that I learned that the saying is words of the living Jesus, spoken to Julian in a vision.1 Therefore, we have it on the highest authority, the lowdown from highup, that all shall be well, “an affirmation of a final ultimate reconciliation and unity.”2 T.S. Eliot who, like Julian, was a good Anglican, uses the saying twice in what many consider his finest poem: Four Quartets. That’s where I first came across it, many years ago. The final lines of Eliot’s poem:
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
(Click on Play button to hear T. S. Eliot’s verse read aloud.)
Mother Julian is commemorated in a modern life-size statue on the front of Norwich Cathedral. She and St, Benedict together flank the west door, she on the left, he on the right:
Close-ups from the above picture:
St. Julian stands on the left of the entrance, her left arm holding her book so that its title is clear. St. Benedict puts his finger to his lips to urge silence—(ausculta: “listen”)—the word written on his book.
Notes
1. “But Jesu, that in this vysyon enformed me of alle that me nedyd, answeryd by thys word and seyde, ‘But alle shalle be wele, and alle shalle be wele, and alle maner of thynge shalle be wele.’” —Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, The Thirteenth Revelation (Chapter 27).
2. Quotation by A. M. Allchin (1930-2010) who was an Anglican priest and theologian, and Canon of Canterbury Cathedral.