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Few people have called today's Christians back to the witness of the "devotional masters" more enthusiastically and consistently than Richard Foster. Author of the classic Celebration of Discipline, Foster has consistently brought us into contact with the "riches old and new" of 2,000 years of Christian spirituality. Here, Foster tells how he learned deep lessons on Christian virtues from three very different but equally "devoted" Christians.

I was teaching a university class in which we were reading the writings of many of the great Christians: Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas a Kempis, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and more. For one particular session I innocently assigned Juliana's The Revelations of Divine Love, thinking only that it was appropriate for us to read this first book written by a woman in English. When we gathered the next week, however, I found students in an uproar. We had discussed many great writings with intelligence, reason, even good humor. But this was different. Everyone was speaking, debating, even shouting. Some loved the book, others hated it, but all were passionately engaged.

As I sought to referee the discussion, I searched for a reason for this turn of events. How could a book whose only concern is the love of God cause such intensity? It espouses no political or social agenda. It embraces no questionable doctrine. It was, I thought, an unlikely book to cause controversy.

The Revelations of Divine Love (sometimes titled simply Showings) is the mature reflection upon 16 visions that were given to Juliana on May 8, 1373 when she was 30 years of age. Our classroom controversy centered around her passionate language of love. These students were not unfamiliar with such language—contemporary movies, books, and television shows have an abundance of it—but they clearly were unaccustomed to hearing it used in Christian devotion. Juliana writes, "The Trinity is our everlasting lover, our joy and our bliss, through our Lord Jesus Christ." On another occasion she speaks of Jesus as "our clothing. In his love he wraps and holds us. He enfolds us for love, and he will never let us go." Meditating upon the passion of Christ she writes earnestly, "I desired to suffer with him."

Well, you can begin to understand the debate that was going on in the class—and in me. Is such language (and experience) appropriate for the life of Christian devotion? If not, why not? If it is appropriate, what difference should it make in the walk of faith? Our class began to realize that contemporary culture had conditioned us to think of passionate love exclusively in erotic and sexual terms. We all found Juliana illuminating many biblical passages such as the story of John—"the one whom Jesus loved"—laying his head on Jesus' breast at the Last Supper. At the same time, we found it hard to believe that this relationship of deep, holy intimacy could be right, could be true, could be ours.

That day in that classroom Juliana was freeing us to look at God's love for us and our response of love with new eyes. No longer could we view the crucifixion in detachment and endlessly debate theories of the atonement. No, she drew us near to see "the body plenteously bleeding … the fair skin … broken full deep into the tender flesh with sharp smiting all about the sweet body. So plenteously the hot blood ran out that there was neither seen skin nor wound, but as it were all blood."

No longer could we recite the Apostles' Creed as an intellectual affirmation only. Instead, those words of faith drew us close to the heart of Jesus where "praising him, thanking him, loving him and blessing him forever" became our preoccupations. These were some of the lessons Juliana taught us that day—lessons I am only beginning to learn.

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