Julian's writings show an English mystic whose main emphasis was God's total benevolence and love in terms of joy and compassion. When Julian was 30 and living at home, she suffered from a serious illness. Since she was presumed to be near death, her curate came to administer the last rites of the Catholic Church on 8 May 1373. As part of the ritual, he held a crucifix in the air above the foot of her bed. Julian reported that she was losing her sight and felt physically numb, but as she gazed on the crucifix she saw the figure of Jesus begin to bleed. Over the next several hours, she had a series of sixteen visions of Jesus Christ, which ended by the time she recovered from her illness on 13 May 1373. She wrote a short account of these "showings" soon afterward, and 20 years later wrote this longer account of them after she had been able to contemplate them more deeply. - from Amzon