07 March 2024, The Tablet

Inward grace – sin is behovely


In the fourth of our pieces on the sacraments, a poet reflects on our need for confession and atonement.

Inward grace – sin is behovely

Julian of Norwich seems to suggest that sin is not entirely wrong and may be a Good Thing.
Matt Brown / flickr | Creative Commons

 

Like many readers, I came to the visionary writings of Julian of Norwich by way of a now famous borrowing from Revelations of Divine Love in T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding”:

Sin is Behovely, but
All shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well.

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