In today’s gospel, Jesus is talking about the time when he will no longer be physically on Earth, and he says he’ll send the Advocate, the comforter, in his place. He’ll send the Holy Spirit to teach, and guide, and comfort, and strengthen his people on Earth.
And there’s one phrase that really jumped out at me: “I will not leave you orphaned.” Not just I will not leave you alone, but I will not leave you orphaned, as if he were a parent to us.
And that reminded me of some of the writing of Julian of Norwich, whose feast day actually was last week. Do you know anything about Julian of Norwich, anybody? No? Okay, great. So I won’t be telling you something you already know.
Julian of Norwich was a woman who lived in the 14th century, and she lived in the city of Norwich, which at that time was the second-largest city in England after London. It’s about a hundred miles northeast of London, not quite as far as the North Sea. It had a cathedral, and it had many churches—fifty-some churches—and 35 or so of those churches had something that was called an anchorite.
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