(Norwich) “Our division is and was a plague in the Christian Church. Christ constantly calls us to unity. Anything we can do to walk closer to each other, to have a better dialogue and to nurture moments of sharing, even if sometimes we cannot agree on everything, is very important, and the meeting in Norwich, between bishops of the Catholic Church of England and Wales and the Church of England, fits in this context”. This is how Anglican Bishop Graham Usher, in charge of the Diocese of Norwich that is hosting a two-day ecumenical retreat, explained the significance of this moment of fraternity. “I think it is wonderful that we are holding this meeting on the occasion of the celebrations for the 650th anniversary of the ‘Revelations’ of Julian of Norwich, a text containing the visions of Jesus Christ which the medieval mystic, venerated as a Blessed by Catholics and as a Saint by Anglicans, had during an illness in the 1300s. Pope Francis recalled her a few months ago, in a letter sent to my Catholic brother, the Bishop of East Anglia Peter Collins”, Bishop Usher explained.

“Despite having the highest number of churches in the UK, Norwich is the second most secularised city in our country, after Brighton, where the highest number of people say they do not follow any religion. This context makes all the more important the work of evangelisation that Catholics and Anglicans must do together. The words of our Julian help us in this, for despite witnessing three waves of the Black Death in her life, which destroyed two thirds of Norwich, she never lost hope in God. ‘All shall be well’ because God is in charge of everything, the famous anchorite used to repeat. And these words are very topical also for us today, who are struggling with war, famine, and the climate crisis”.