The earnestness and piety of the medieval Christian, especially in contrast with the pervasive irony and detachment of contemporary culture, is very touching. It was an age, Grace Hamman writes, “saturated in beauty and love of Christ.” She urges readers to encounter the ideas of our medieval brothers and sisters humbly and with childlike openness after the example of Julian of Norwich “reverently beholding” the mysteries of our Lord.

Hamman finds the Lord portrayed as a knight, a mother, a judge, and a lover.