This podcast on a warm but very windy day in the valley of a mountain, is what we found when we visited Gwytherin in North Wales, where St Winifride is reported to have been buried. Legend has it that the bones still remain there under the four ancient yews. A local person tells me of the problems faced by churchgoers, as even with large numbers of pilgrims Conway Council seem to have denied planning permission to the two members of the congregation who bought it from the Church in Wales to re-open it for services. There are ancient Druid Stones- and it is almost certainly an ancient site when St Beuno opened the 'Llan' there and installed his niece St Winifride as Superior, a place where she worked for thirty years more and then died. I will deal more with Winifride (or Gwenfrewi's) story when we talk specifically about the well.

During the Middle Ages in Gwent, as all over Britain, the wounds of Christ were a subject of intense devotion. By the time of the 6th Century and St David, when the Saint at Llandewi Brefi bravely refuted thhe heresies of Pelagius, reports tell us that he preached before five large candles, representative of all the wounds of Christ.

The Wesleyan hymn ;Lo he comes with Clouds Descending, mentions the scars which have captured the imagination of many Christians.

Every Eye shall now behold him

Robed in dreadful majesty

Thouse who set at naught and sold hi,

pierced and nailed him to a tree....

Those dear tokens of his Passion

Still his dazzling body bears

cause of endless exultation

To his ransomed worshippers

with what rapture

Gaze we on those glorious scars!!

I hope you find this beautiful devotion uplifting for the season of Lent. It loosely uses the prayers from the St Anthony Prayerbook, but I have adapted them slightly.