Assess The Significance Of Julian's Letter To My Mother

As a consequence, we can consider the Virgin Mary (with her womb) as God’s instrument, which enables both the redemption of all creatures and the uniting of the soul and body of human creatures with Christ who by this means becomes a perfect man.

Finally, the Virgin Mary’s womb is a place of fall that bears harmful repercussions for Jesus. Julian writes “And in this falling he toke grete sore. The sore that he toke was oure flesh, in which as swathe he had feling of deadly paines (Watson and Jenkins 285).” Julian uses the word “falling” that is indeed evocative of this harm. When one falls, one gets hurt or feels pain. Falling into the Virgin’s womb brings one consequence for Jesus: He bears wounds from this fall, and the same wounds are

Julian writes, “Thus oure lady is oure moder, in whome we be all beclosed and of her borne in Crist. For she that is moder of oure savioure is mother of all that ben saved in our saviour. And oure savioure is oure very moder...(Watson and Jenkins 305).” One possible interpretation of Julian’s statement here is that, through the Virgin Mary (“of her”), human creatures are born in Christ . This reinforces the idea of humankind’s redemption in Christ discussed earlier. The idea that humankind’s body was already enclosed (“beclosed”) in the Virgin Mary’s womb here echoes again; yet here this presence in her womb features Mary as humankind’s mother. The second reason the Virgin Mary is called humankind’s mother is much more explicit in Julian’ s statement. For Julian, because the Virgin Mary is the mother of humankind’s savior, she becomes the mother of all that have been saved by the savior. This second reason lies then in Jesus’ salvation of humankind. Julian also mentions that Jesus is humankind’s true mother (“very moder”). This can be seen as an entailment of the first interpretation abovementioned: human creatures are born in Christ through Mary’s womb. Mary’s womb in that sense enables Jesus to be the true mother of humankind. As a result of all this, one can consider the Virgin Mary is a second-degree mother to humankind, and Christ as such becomes its first-degree