Few have consoled the church as ably as the fourteenth-century mystic Julian of Norwich. However, her prophetic gifts have received little scholarly attention. Drawing on contemporary homiletical theory and the history of Christian spirituality, Donyelle C. McCray presents Julian as a preacher, examining the apostolic dimensions of Julian’s vocation as an anchoress and highlighting the steps she took to align herself with renowned preachers like Saint Cecelia, Mary Magdalene, and the apostle Paul. Like Paul, Julian saw Jesus’ body as her primary text, placed human weakness at the center of her theology, and used her own confined body as a rhetorical tool. Yet she navigated a web of censorship that threatened to silence her. To voice her convictions, Julian developed a novel approach to authority and exploited the fluidity of the medieval English sermon genre. McCray charts this process, revealing Julian as a central personality in the history of preaching whose best contemporary parallels operate outside the pulpit in august figures like retreat leader Evelyn Underhill, gospel singer Mother Willie Mae Ford Smith, and street preacher Reverend Billy.

The world is slowly emerging from the worst global emergency in a century, and the myriad struggles of the contemporary moment-division, isolation, illness, and uncertainty-make living our faith a challenge. For Christians, a number of questions have gained new urgency: Where do we find hope when it seems in such short supply? Where are the signs of God's peace in this divided world? Where do we find a deeper sense of joy? Thomas G. Long and Donyelle C. McCray remind us that these are the questions of Advent in their new daily devotional, A Surprising God. Mindful of the stresses of life today in a world torn apart by conflict, marked by political division, and in the midst of a global health crisis, these devotions for Advent and Christmas invite readers to honest reflection on the challenges of being people of faith in this moment. Long and McCray explore what it means to wait for our salvation, to be open to the surprising thing that God is about to do, and to find hope in God's choice of the small and the insignificant.