In you, Father all-mighty,

we have our preservation and our bliss.

In you, Christ,

we have our restoring and our saving.

You are our mother, brother, and Saviour.

In you, our Lord the Holy Spirit,

is marvellous and plenteous grace.

You are our clothing;

for love you wrap us and embrace us.

You are our maker, our lover, our keeper.

Teach us to believe that by your grace

all shall be well, and all shall be well,

and all manner of thing shall be well.

“Just because I am a woman, must I therefore believe that I should not tell you about the goodness of God?” So challenged Julian of Norwich who is thought to be the first woman to write a book in English – a wonderful thing to celebrate on this International Women’s Day. Today’s prayer is formed from phrases in her spiritual classic, Revelations of Divine Love, each delighting in God’s tender embrace, enfolding, enduring.  We’ve no details about Julian’s education but her writings reveal familiarity with English and Latin works and she was adept at quoting from the Bible.

More than six centuries later, plenty of girls across the world - currently 130 million in fact – are denied education. A decade ago, Malala Yousafzai, then 15, was shot for challenging the Taliban’s directive that school was for boys only. But though critically injured, she was not silenced. “I believed in my strength,” she says. “I believed I would leave hospital and run like a wolf, fly like an eagle.” She’s now an activist for girls’ education globally and the youngest Nobel laureate ever.

Like Malala, Julian too had been close to death. Yet out of that experience and her visions of the crucified Christ at that time, she was able to say, “All shall be well”. As you listen to this deep and mysterious phrase being sung, you’ll be taken round the church to which she was attached as an anchoress.