UMILTA WEBSITE, JULIAN OF NORWICH, HER SHOWING OF LOVE AND ITS CONTEXTS ©1997-2010 JULIA BOLTON HOLLOWAY  || JULIAN OF NORWICH  || SHOWING OF LOVE || HER TEXTS || HER SELF || ABOUT HER TEXTS || BEFORE JULIAN || HER CONTEMPORARIES || AFTER JULIAN || JULIAN IN OUR TIME || ST BIRGITTA OF SWEDEN  ||  BIBLE AND WOMEN || EQUALLY IN GOD'S IMAGE  || MIRROR OF SAINTS || BENEDICTINISM|| THE CLOISTER || ITS SCRIPTORIUM  || AMHERST MANUSCRIPT || PRAYER|| CATALOGUE AND PORTFOLIO (HANDCRAFTS, BOOKS ) || BOOK REVIEWS || BIBLIOGRAPHY ||  Webmaster  Rev. Matthew Naumes 1997/2009 CLOISTER PORTAL


OUR_ANCHORHOLD ~
 
 

{rom a one book-lined room above Florence, without heat, on foot, but with a computer, we sought to build an ideal monastery, an ideal convent, one that never was, is or will be - yet always is. Our Julian anchorhold. It is our prayer that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourself, that Godfriends be without walls, for all, for the good of our Creator's Creation. This CD, this website, can become Teresa of Avila's 'Interior Castle', Paul Couturier's 'Invisible Monastery'. The Temple could become the Torah. And this be our school for prayer. Your world as global hermitage - and cloister.

Detail of Ideal Monastery Church and Cloister in a St Gall Manuscript
The square section next to the church building is the cloister, with
cells facing onto an enclosed garden, a well at the centre, symbolizing
Paradise .

Then our global hermitage changed. One room with too many books and no way to share them, on foot for four years, was claustrophobic. We placed this problem in God's hands. We now have a House of Prayer and a House of Study in the Swiss-owned historic ' English Cemetery ', an entire Piazzale in Florence filled with tombs, with a bottega , a workshop, for bookbinding, paper-marbling, picture-framing, tomb-restoring, embroidering, gardening, etc., in its Gatehouse, and a library, the Biblioteca e Bottega Fioretta Mazzei , and even a pair of bicycles. For Julian herself had her anchorhold in a graveyard. Our library includes the Paulist Press Classics of Western Spirituality publication series on contemplatives, such as the Friends of God, a CD of the Latin Church Fathers, Bibles in Greek and Hebrew, the volumes published by SISMEL, and much else. We suggest to each other books needing to be written, websites to be created. We pray the Hours of the Church, attend Mass daily, weekdays at the Santissima Annunziata, on Sundays the Messa dei Poveri of Giorgio La Pira and Fioretta Mazzei at the Badia, and at 6:00 on Thursday afternoons for two years we met together to read Dante and sing Vespers and share supper, at 5:00 on Sunday afternoons, again we meet together in the manner of Friends, of Quakers, as a cenacolo like St Catherine of Siena's, ours dedicated to Giuliana di Norwich, Julian of Norwich, for the reading of the Gospel, prayer, Vespers, and a shared supper. Godfriends include Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox, Jews and others. Thus we combine work, study, prayer, using our bodies, minds, souls, for God and neighbour. 

One section of this Website shall be on contemplative, and also active, Founders and their Charisms. For as Christianity is built upon Christ, Franciscanism upon St Francis, Brigittinism upon St Birgitta, all religion and religious movements within the whole mirror each other and God as in a kaleidoscope, refracting God as in a prism, changing light into rainbows.



We thought long and hard about what to call this website, monastery, convent, cloister, communion, for it is all of these and none of these. Perhaps best is the sense that it is the Presence of God within the One Body of His Son, He in our midst, in our flesh and blood. He is our One High Priest. In the end it has become simply 'Godfriends'. Then 'Global Hermitage', next 'Our Anchorhold', were born. For Godfriends are ecumenical, are on every Continent. We combine the very old with the very new. Many Godfriends have gone on to enter cloisters, Dominican, Carthusian, Carmelite, Benedictine, many already are monks and nuns. My son had a van from which he fed thousands of homeless in the streets of New York, Philadelphia and Washington, which he called 'Everybody's Kitchen'. In Godfriends, similarly, there are no boundaries between lay and religious, all being invited to the Parables' Wedding Feast.


Below we give web essays on I. Father Founders, Mother Foundresses, II. Their Rules, III. On Prayer, IV. Related Links.

I. Father Founders, Mother Foundresses:

Desert Fathers, then and now: http://www.stmacariusmonastery.org/eabout.htm Link §
Margot King on Desert Mothers: http://www.hermitary.com/articles/mothers.html Link §

II. Their Rules. Ideally, these are the Gospels, Word made flesh and lived. We give here blueprints/rules founders and foundresses have written through time, remembering that medieval blueprints, as above, are redprints, drawn with sanguine, terra cotta clay, of the earth, like flesh and blood, like ourselves:

St Clare of Assisi, Privilege of Poverty II: Regula Sanctae Clarae Latin

St Birgitta of Sweden Regula Salvatoris Latin

Richard Methley of Mount Grace Charterhouse, To Hewe Heremyte Middle English/ Latin Newest

St John of the Cross If You Would Be Perfect Spanish/English

Agnes Mason, CHF Rule for the Community of the Holy Family English

Gerontissa Gabrielia An Orthodox Woman Solitary

Padre Fr. Alberto E. Justo, OP Regla para Eremitas/Rule for Hermits Spanish/English

Jim H. Godfriends' AA Traditions/Rule

Carmelo "Regina Carmeli" La Richezza della povertà carmelitana Italian

 'Christ girded himself with the towel of our humanity to minister to that which was sick'.
Cyril of Jerusalem
III. On Prayer. Our bodies, minds, souls, in harmony and as gift to God, shape better communities through prayer, through sacred conversation, than can any building of stone and brick and wood.

Mary's Dowry Newest

Monk in Refectory beneath 'Last Supper'.
Courtesy, Catharina Lindgren, Sweden


IV. Links to Classic Writings on Monastic Contemplation, of the Bible and the Church Fathers, and to Contemplative and Active Orders around the world (To Link Your Website, Contact Webmaster: Father Matthew Naumes ):

UMILTA WEBSITE,  JULIAN OF NORWICH, HER SHOWING OF LOVE AND ITS CONTEXTS ©1997-2010 JULIA BOLTON HOLLOWAY  || JULIAN OF NORWICH  || SHOWING OF LOVE || HER TEXTS || HER SELF || ABOUT HER TEXTS || BEFORE JULIAN || HER CONTEMPORARIES || AFTER JULIAN || JULIAN IN OUR TIME || ST BIRGITTA OF SWEDEN  ||  BIBLE AND WOMEN || EQUALLY IN GOD'S IMAGE  || MIRROR OF SAINTS || BENEDICTINISM|| THE CLOISTER || ITS SCRIPTORIUM  || AMHERST MANUSCRIPT || PRAYER|| CATALOGUE AND PORTFOLIO (HANDCRAFTS, BOOKS ) || BOOK REVIEWS || BIBLIOGRAPHY ||