Slides for a Day of Reflection led by Carl McColman for St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Ridgfield, CT. Includes inspirational quotes from the 14h century mystic Julian of Norwich and the 20th century mystic Evelyn Underhill.

1. Wisdom During
Difficult Times
St. Stephen’s Church, Ridgefield, CT

2. “Wisdom During Difficult Times”
The year 2020 has been challenging for many people, with the coronavirus
pandemic, raging fires in the American west, and our deep political divisions
causing much suffering and ongoing uncertainty. Today, let’s consider how we
can respond spiritually to this moment and what words of wisdom can bring
us courage, comfort, and solace.

3. “Wisdom During Difficult Times”
Our retreat draws from two renowned English spiritual teachers who each
experienced a pandemic. From the middle ages comes the wisdom of Lady
Julian of Norwich, famous for saying “All Shall Be Well” and “the fullness of joy
is to behold God in all.” Closer to our time is Evelyn Underhill, a laywoman
who, in the words of Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey, “did more
than anyone else in Anglicanism to keep the spiritual life alive in the period
between the [two world] wars.” Lady Julian lived through the bubonic plague
and Ms. Underhill the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918. Yet they both celebrate a
spirituality steeped in divine love and filled with optimistic joy.

4. Evelyn Underhill
Morning Session
October 10, 2020
St. Stephen’s Church, Ridgefield, CT

5. A Spiritual Guide for
times of pandemic?
Lived during the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of
1918-20 (she was in her early ‘40s at the time)
No letters or writings in which she comments on the
pandemic, her health or the health of loved ones
She did suffer from the flu at later points in her life,
and was a lifelong sufferer of asthma
Her guidance for us, therefore, is indirect. She guides
us not on “surviving pandemics” but simply on faith.

6. Evelyn Underhill
in
her own words…

7. “Divine Love is not a
single thread that links
creature and Creator;
but rather a web that
knits up the many with
the One.”
Evelyn Underhill
The Mystic Way

8. “It is indeed in a spirit of
intensest and humble
adoration that generous
souls yield themselves
to the drawing of that
mysterious Beauty and
unchanging Love, with
all that it entails.”
Evelyn Underhill
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today

9. “It is only through the mood of
humble and loving receptivity
in which the artist perceives
beauty, that the human spirit
can apprehend a reality which
is greater than itself. ”
Evelyn Underhill
The Essentials of Mysticism

10. “Human life is
readjusted and made
whole by the healing
action of dynamic love.”
Evelyn Underhill
Abba: Meditations on the Lord’s Prayer

11. “It is by the glad and
grateful laying hold on the
inheritance of joy, that the
purified spirit enters most
deeply into the heart of
Reality.”
Evelyn Underhill
The Mystic Way

12. “Faith beholds that which is:
Charity loves that which is: Hope
alone beholds and loves that
which shall be. Faith is static;
hope dynamic. Faith is a great
tree; hope is the rising sap, the
little, swelling bud upon the
spray.”
Evelyn Underhill
The Essentials of Mysticism

13. “Illumination shall be gradual. The
attainment of it depends not so
much upon a philosophy accepted,
or a new gift of vision suddenly
received, as upon an uninterrupted
changing and widening of
character; a progressive growth
towards the Real, an ever more
profound harmonisation of the self's
life with the greater and inclusive
rhythms of existence. It shall
therefore develop in width and
depth as the sphere of that self's
intuitive love extends.”
Evelyn Underhill
Practical Mysticism

14. “The real mystical life, which is the truly
practical life, begins at the beginning;
not with supernatural acts and ecstatic
apprehensions, but with the normal
faculties of the normal person. ‘I do not
require of you,’ says Teresa to her pupils
in meditation, ‘to form great and curious
considerations in your understanding: I
require of you no more than to look.’”
Evelyn Underhill
Practical Mysticism

15. “The full life of the Spirit, then, is
active, contemplative, ascetic and
apostolic; though nowadays we
express these abiding human
dispositions in other and less
formidable terms. If we translate them
as work, prayer, self-discipline and
social service they do not look quite
so bad.”
Evelyn Underhill
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today

16. “The condition of joyous and
awakened love to which the
mystic passes is above all else,
the state of Song. Mystics do not
‘see’ the spiritual world: they
‘hear’ it. As for St. Francis of
Assisi, it is a ‘heavenly melody,
intolerably sweet.’”
Evelyn Underhill
Mysticism

17. “As your meditation becomes deeper
it will defend you from the perpetual
assaults of the outer world. You will
hear the busy hum of that world as a
distant exterior melody, and know
yourself to be in some sort withdrawn
from it. You have set a ring of silence
between you and it; and behold! within
that silence you are free.”
Evelyn Underhill
The Letters of Evelyn Underhill

18. “The contemplative act, which is an
act of loving and self-forgetting
concentration upon the Divine— the
outpouring of our little and finite
personality towards the Absolute
Personality of God— will, in so far as it
transcends thought, mean darkness
for the intellect; but it may mean
radiance for the heart. ”
Evelyn Underhill
Mysticism

19. “Contemplation is an act of love, the
wooing, not the critical study, of Divine
Reality. It is an eager outpouring of
ourselves towards a Somewhat Other for
which we feel a passion of desire; a seeking,
touching, and tasting, not a considering and
analysing, of the beautiful and true wherever
found. It is, as it were, a responsive act of
the organism to those Supernal Powers
without, which touch and stir it.”
Evelyn Underhill
The Letters of Evelyn Underhill

20. “Even that mysterious communion
with God in which we seek, and offer
ourselves to, that which we love--in
spite of the deep peace it brings--is
not without the pain and tension which
must be felt by imperfect human
creatures, when they contemplate and
stretch towards a beauty and
perfection which they cannot reach.”
Evelyn Underhill
The Spiritual Life

21. “So, what is being offered to you is
not merely a choice amongst new
states of consciousness, new
emotional experiences – though
these are indeed involved in it – but,
above all else, a larger and intenser
life, a career, a total consecration to
the interests of the Real.”
Evelyn Underhill
The Letters of Evelyn Underhill

22. “ This will be an incoherent
letter because I have just
been given a very engaging
Persian kitten, named after
St. Philip Neri (who was
very sound on cats) and his
opinion is that I have been
given to him..”
Evelyn Underhill
The Letters of Evelyn Underhill

23. The Prayer of
Recollection

24. • A Spiritual Exercise Based on the
Teachings of Evelyn Underhill
The Prayer of
Recollection

25. Small Group Conversation
• Evelyn Underhill calls Divine Love “a web that knits up the many with the
One.” What do you think she means? How can we foster such love in our
lives?
• Evelyn Underhill often speaks about God in artistic language: God is an
“Artist,” and the spiritual life connects us with “Beauty.” What do you find
beautiful about spirituality or prayer? What can we do to foster more beauty in
our lives, and share it with others?
• Evelyn Underhill defines prayer as “a free and mutual act of love… between
the soul and the divine.” What can we do to bring more LOVE into our prayer?

26. Questions for Reflection
• Evelyn Underhill describes prayer as a “discipline.” What can we do to make
our prayer life more of a regular, disciplined part of each day?
• The Gospels report the apostles going to Jesus and saying, “Lord, teach us
to pray.” If you had the opportunity to ask Jesus a question about prayer,
what would you ask him?
• Evelyn Underhill describes Christian spirituality as “mysticism.” Are you
comfortable with this word? Why or why not? What would it mean to be
Christian mystic here in the 21st century?

27. Julian of Norwich
Afternoon Session
October 10, 2020
St. Stephen’s Church, Ridgefield, CT

28. A Spiritual Guide for
times of pandemic?
Lived during the Bubonic Plague Epidemics of the fourteenth
century (first outbreak when she was a child)
Like Evelyn Underhill, Julian apparently did not consider the
plague to be a topic worth writing about
We know very little about her, but some scholars think she
may have lost family members in the 1360-3 outbreak
Like Underhill, Julian is an indirect guide to faith during
difficult times. Her emphasis is on trust and joy.

29. Julian of Norwich
in
her own words…

30. “God, of your goodness,
give me yourself, for you
are enough for me. I may
ask nothing less that is
fully to your worship, and
if I do ask anything less,
ever shall I be in want.
Only in you I have all.”

31. “Prayer unites the
soul to God.”
The Fourteenth Showing, Chapter 43

32. God Our Maker, Keeper, and Lover
“I was shown a little thing the size of a hazelnut, lying in the
palm of my hand as it seemed, as round as any ball. Seeing
with my spiritual sight, I thought ‘What may this be?’ and was
answered, ‘It is all creation.’ I marveled how it might last, for I
thought it might have suddenly fallen into nothingness, it was
so little. And I received this answer: ‘It lasts and ever shall, for
God loves it. And so all things have being by the love of God.’
In this little thing I saw three properties: first, God made it;
second, God loves it; and third, God keeps it.”
(First showing, chapter 5)

33. ‘It is true that sin is the cause of
all this suffering, but all shall be
well, and all shall be well, and all
manner of things shall be well.’
These words were said very
tenderly, with no suggestion that I
or anyone who will be saved was
being blamed.

34. “You Shall Not Be Overcome”
“The last words Christ spoke to me was, ‘You shall not be overcome.’
This was meant not just for me, but for all Christians, as is God’s will.
This was said full sharply and mightily for security and comfort against
all tribulations that may come. He didn’t say, ‘You shall not be tempest-
tossed, you shall not be troubled, you shall not be distressed’ but he
said ‘You shall not be overcome.’ God wills that we take heed at this
word, and that we remain mighty in secure trust, in wellness or in woe.”
(Sixteenth Showing, Chapter 68)

35. “For the fullness of
joy is to behold
God in all.”

36. “Love is Divine Meaning”
“From the time I received the showings, I often desired to know what was
our Lord’s meaning. And after more than fifteen years, I was answered in
my spiritual understanding, like this: ‘what, would you know your lord’s
meaning? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love.
What was shown to you? Love. Why was this shown to you? For love. Hold
this within you, and you shall receive more wisdom of the same. And you
will know nothing else, forever.’ Thus was I shown that love is our lord’s
meaning.”
(Chapter 86)

37. “I saw that God is our true
peace, and he is our sure
support when we are ourselves
unpeaceful, and he is continually
working to bring us into eternal
peace. And thus when, through
the working of mercy and grace,
we are made humble and gentle,
we are surely safe. The soul is
quickly united to God when it
truly finds inner peace, for in God
no anger can be found.”

38. Julian on Prayer
• “The Lord God is the ground of our praying. Arising from this,
we are shown true prayer and steady trust and God wants us
to be generous in both alike. In this way our prayer is pleasing
to him and in his goodness he fulfills it.”

39. Julian on Prayer
Generosity
PrayerTrust

40.
“So Truly is God our Mother.”
“As truly as God is our father, so truly is God our mother. God showed me this in
all, and namely in these sweet words where God says, ‘I am.’ That is to say,
I am the might and the goodness of fatherhood,
I am the wisdom and the kindness of motherhood,
I am the light and the grace that is all blessed love,
I am the trinity, I am the unity,
I am the high sovereign goodness of all manner of things,
I am who makes you to love, I am who makes you to long,
I am the endless fulfilling of all true desires.
For where the soul is highest, noblest, and worshipfullest,
There it is lowest, meekest, and mildest.”
(Chapter 59)

41. A Julian of Norwich Meditation
“I was shown a
little thing the size
of a hazelnut…”

42. Small Group Conversation
• Julian says the fullness of joy is to behold God in all. Do you find it easy to
agree with Julian, or difficult? Share your perspective with the group.
• Where is it easy for you to find God? In other people? In nature? In church?
Share some ways that you are able to “behold” the presence of God.
• Are there people, places or situations where it is difficult for you to find or
see the presence of God? Can you share an example of this? What can we
do to be more available to find God’s presence in the difficult places/
situations?

43. Questions for Prayerful Reflection
• What does prayer look like to a God who “made us, loves us, keeps us”?
• What does it mean to be generous in prayer? Generous in trust?
• How will prayer be different when we trust “seeking” as much as “seeing”?
• How can we live in a way that is worthy of “All shall be well”?

44. A Final Word…
• “Remember, God is acting on your soul all the time, whether
you have spiritual sensations or not.”
— The Letters of Evelyn Underhill

45. Visit Carl’s website:
www.anamchara.com