Through my recent visit to London and to the Tyburn Convent I found out about the Roman Catholic devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. I have since been reading further on the subject and have been astonised by the parallels between my gnosis of Gwyn’s heart as the Heart of Annwn and the experiences of the Christian mystics of the sacred heart.

In this series I will be sharing the story of the origins of the devotion to the Sacred Heart and discussing how the visions of these mystics relate to my experiences.

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The devotion to the Sacred Heart originated from the devotion to the Sacred Wounds of Jesus. There were five in total. The first four were the wounds to His hands and feet from the nails when He was crucified. The fifth was the wound in His side from the Spear of Longinus by which He was pierced to ensure He was dead. From this wound poured blood and sweat. 

Associations between the Sacred Wounds and the Sacred Heart began in the Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries in the 11th – 12th centuries. In Sermon 61 St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153) speaks of ‘the soul of the martyr’ being ‘safe’ ‘in the heart of Jesus whose wounds were opened to let it in’. (1) 

In the 13th century, in ‘With You is the Source of Life’, St Bonaventure (1221 – 1274) wrote: ‘“They shall look on him whom they pierced”. The blood and water, which poured out at that moment, were the price of our salvation. Flowing from the secret abyss of our Lord’s heart as from a fountain, this stream gave the sacraments of the Church the power to confer the life of grace, while for those already living in Christ it became a spring of living water welling up to life everlasting.’ (2)

The last of Christ’s lifeblood was seen as pouring as an offfering from His heart. This resonates with my vision Gwyn showed me of His death, pierced by a spear, in raven form, hanging upside down on a yew over the Abyss in a sacrifice in which He gave every last drop of His blood to ‘set the world to rights’ following the devastation wrecked by his battling with His rival, Lleu / Gwythyr.

In a follow-up story I wrote Mabon won a cup containing Gwyn’s blood from the Abyss and used it to heal Nudd, Gwyn’s father, ‘the Fisher King’. It is interesting to note that abyss imagery occurs in the writings of Bonaventure.

It seems no coincidence that in a later legend the blood and sweat of Jesus was taken in the Holy Grail by Joseph of Arimathea to Britain and buried near Glastonbury Tor – a site sacred to Gwyn. When Joseph rested wearily on his staff the Glastonbury Thorn sprung up giving name to Wearyall Hill.

In my visions when Gwyn is killed by His rival on Calan Mai the hawthorns blossom from His blood. Could the Christian legend be based on an earlier myth wherein a cup containing the blood from Gwyn’s Sacred Heart was buried?

REFERENCES

(1) ‘Sacred Heart of Jesus – Part One’, Knights of the Precious Blood, https://www.kofpb.org/2020/05/06/sacred-heart-of-jesus-part-1-history-of-the-devotion/
(2) Sister Julie Anne Sheahan, ‘Call includes Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Franciscan Sisters, https://fscc-calledtobe.org/2022/06/23/call-includes-consecration-to-the-sacred-heart-of-jesus