Anne & Joachim

Saint Anne & Joachim

memorial
26 July

Anne:
Also known as:
Anna
Ann

Joachim:
Also known as
Heli

Profile

Devotion to our saint for today goes back to the earliest times of the Church; Saint Anne (or Ann) is traditionally the name of the Mother of Our Lady. Ergo she is the Grandmother of Jesus Christ. Her husband is known as Saint Joachim, who therefore is the elderly father of the Blessed Virgin Mary; logically this makes him Grandfather of Jesus Christ. Anyone who Our Lord and Savior called grandma and grandpa is okay in my book.

The oral history and story, including the names “Anne and Joachim, ” were eventually written down for the European Church in a book called the Protoevangelium of James; an apocryphal “gospel” written in the early Middle Ages. This document is like “The Expanded Universe books” to Star Wars fans. It was written to fill out the gaps in a story loved by everyone but not really canon. In this case the story everyone loved being the Gospels of course. It was really huge in the Middle Ages, and most of our common beliefs on Anne, Joachim and Mary and the infancy of Jesus come from James…. The Protoevangelium of James is like holy “fan fiction” and not exactly heretical like some other apocryphal “gospels” like the Gospel of Thomas, but not at all scripture. With that said, everyone back then would be familiar with these writings, it’s okay, so enjoy.

Anne and Joachim were probably pretty well off for the locality and time in history; they were pious children of Israel but childless, which is considered a curse from God, and shameful to the Hebrew folk. Joacam would give three times the required or requested offerings at the temple for the Jewish people, and one day a member of the priestly caste told him he was not permitted to give anymore as he is childless and a shame on the people of Israel. And so Anna prayed regularly at the Temple for the Lord to give her a child, and promised if he answered her prayer she would have the child serve the lord forever:

“Suddenly, an angel of the Lord stood in front of her, saying, "Anna, Anna, the Lord God has heard your prayer. You will conceive and give birth and your child will be spoken of everywhere people live." And Anna said, "As the Lord God lives, whether I give birth to either a male or a female child, I will bring it as an offering to the Lord my God and it will be a servant to him all the days of its life." (Protoevangelium of James 4:1-2)

Because of this promise, It is believed that Anne and Joachim gave Mary to the service of the Temple when the girl was three years old; this formal act of giving Mary to the temple to serve, is celebrated in November; a feast called the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The order of Sisters that taught me in OLS in the Bronx, (no OLS doesn’t mean the Old Lady’s Society even though we all called it that, it means Our Lady of Solace), were from the religious order of the Presentation Sisters (OPVM), including the Sainted Sister Helen and the dreaded Sister Mary Muriel. For a brief time there was a belief that Anne remained a virgin in the conception and birth of Mary, this was condemned by the Vatican in 1677.

Devotion to her has been popular in the East from the very early days of the Church; widespread devotion in the West began in the 16th century, but many shrines have developed since.

Veneration of her was extended to the whole Church in 1584. In art and statuary, Anne looks quite a lot like the Blessed Mother. You can tell the difference because our saint today is usually seen instructing a young girl in scripture. The young girl would be the BVM. The Whip has a special devotion to Saint Anne.

The traditional tomb of Saint Anne and Saint Joachim was rediscovered in Jerusalem in 1889

Patronage

against poverty
against sterility
broom makers
cabinetmakers
carpenters
childless people
equestrians
expectant mothers
grandparents
homemakers
horse men
housewives
lace makers
lace workers
lost articles
miners
mothers
old-clothes dealers
poor people
pregnancy
pregnant women
riders
seamstresses
stablemen
turners
women in labor