Mechthilde (1240 – 1298) was born into the wealthy Hackeborn family and entered the Benedictine convent of Helfa in Saxony at the age of seventeen.
She had numerous visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, spoken of in The Book of Special Grace, which she compiled after a spiritual crisis aged 50.
I. The Mighty Beating of His Heart
Mechtilde shares a vision in which she rests against Christ’s bosom, listening ‘with attentive ear to the ceaseless and mighty beatings of His own sweet Heart’. Through these ‘beatings’ He sounds ‘invitations’: ‘Come… my love, and receive all that the Beloved can give to His beloved; come. My sister, and possess the inheritance of heaven, which I have bought for thee with My precious Blood; come, My spouse, and enjoy My Godhead.” (5)
This resonated with me deeply for listening to the sound of Gwyn’s Heart, the Heart of Annwn, mighty, awe-inspiring, deafening sometimes, is one of my core practices. I’ve experienced the Heart calling me, inviting me and other monastic devotees to come to Him and worship Him in the Monastery of Annwn. ‘Hear the heart, the heart of Annwn, / hear the heart oh monk and nun / Hear the heart, the heart of Annwn, / “To the monastery we come.”
II. Eternal Praise
On other occasions Mechtilde lays her mouth on the Divine Heart of Jesus and gains sustenance. ‘Drop by drop’ she is gifted verses to offer to His Mother. (6) She also draws from His heart a ‘sweet fruit’ which she places in her mouth signifying ‘eternal praise’ which ‘floweth forth from Him’. (7)
The praise of God is shown to her in another vision as ‘a tube, as it were, coming out of the Heart of God, to her own heart, and then winding back again from her own heart to that of God, by which was signified the praise of God.’ (8) This is later expanded upon. ‘Then straightway she saw tubes, as it were, going forth from the hearts of the angels to the Heart of God, and they made such sweet melody that no man can utter it’. (9)
In another vision Jesus shows reveals His heart as a lamp ‘overflowing’ with large drops of light yet not ‘anywise lessened’. It overflows ‘by little strings of lamps; some of which seemed to stand upright, and to be full of oil, while others were empty, and hung upside down.’ Mechtilde understands ‘by lamps that burnt upright were signified the hearts of those who were present at Mass with devotion and longing desires, while by the lamps that hung down were signified the hearts of those who refused to be raised up by devotion.’ (10)
These remarkable visions show how the praise of God / Jesus, flows from His Sacred Heart to the angels and is gifted to His most ardent devotees. This puts me in mind of the gift of awen ‘inspiration’ to awenyddion in the Brythonic tradition, which flows from the cauldron into the cauldrons of those who praise the Gods. Gwyn owns ‘the Cauldron of Pen Annwn’ and is ‘my patron, inspiration and truth’ and my awen from Him also feels like a gift from His heart.
In The Triads of the Island of Britain we find 90. ‘The Three Perpetual Harmonies of the Island of Britain: One was at the Island of Afallach, and the second at Caer Garadawg, and the third at Bangor. In each of these three places were 2,400 religious men; and of these 100 in turn continued each hour of the twenty-four hours of the day and night in prayer and service to God, ceaselessly and without rest forever.’ (11)
It is notable that one of these ‘Perpetual Harmonies’ was ‘at the Island of Afallach.’ Afallach, from afal, ‘apple’ is another name of Gwyn’s. This makes me wonder if an earlier tradition of eternal praise for Gwyn once existed. Whether that was the case or not I long found a monastery wherein the beat of Gwyn’s heart is played and His praises sung day and night.
III. The Fortress of the Heart
In an astonishing vision Jesus takes Mechtilde into His heart and shuts her in. He shows her the upper part is ‘the sweetness of the spirit of God’ and the lower part ‘the treasury of all good’. In the south is the ‘eternal paradise of all riches’. In the west is ‘eternal peace and joy without end’. In the north is ‘eternal security’. (Jesus does not mention what lies in the east). (12) His heart is elsewhere described as ‘a fair house’ and ‘a house of miraculous beauty’. (13)
This reminds me a little of the depictions of Gwyn’s fortress as filled with fair people and revelry. For me Gwyn’s hall is the heart of the kingdom of Annwn His heart, the Heart of Annwn, beats in its midst. I wonder if there was a mystical tradition wherein His fortress was seen to be the interior of His heart.
When Mechtilde asks how to cleanse her heart Jesus replies: ‘In the love of My divine Heart I will wash thee’ and shows her a ‘river of love’ filled with golden fish. (14)
Here I’m reminded of the sparkling rivers of mead and wine in Annwn and of a personal vision I had of rivers of blood, like veins, pouring from Gwyn’s heart and connecting with the hearts of all beings in Annwn and in Thisworld.
IV. Greet My Heart
Jesus appeared to Mechthilde and said the following: ‘In the morning let your first act be to greet My Heart and to offer Me your own. Whoever breathes a sigh toward Me, draws Me to himself.’ (15)
I found this profoundly beautiful. Every morning Gwyn’s name is the thing I say in my morning prayers and I could imagine incorporating a greeting of His heart and an offering of my heart to Him into my devotions.
There is much modern polytheists could learn from this remarkable saint about the nature of visionary experience and devotion.
REFERENCES
(5) Anon, Revelations of S. Mechtilde, (1875), https://dn790004.ca.archive.org/0/items/selectrevelation00mech/selectrevelation00mech.pdf p117
(6) Ibid. p112 – 113
(7) Ibid. p126
(8) Ibid. p118 – 119
(9) Ibid. p133
(10) Ibid. p136 – 138
(11) Rachel Bromwich (ed), The Triads of the Island of Britain, (University of Wales Press, 2014), p232
(12) Anon, Revelations of S. Mechtilde, (1875), https://dn790004.ca.archive.org/0/items/selectrevelation00mech/selectrevelation00mech.pdf p133 – 135
(13) Ibid. p138, p142
(14) Ibid. 119 – 120
(15) Mechthild, St Joseph’s Abbey, http://spencerabbey1098.blogspot.com/2014/11/mechtilde.html