Saint Anne

The Gospels never name the mother of Mary. Her name, and that of her husband Joachim, come from New Testament apocrypha, chiefly the Gospel of James, written perhaps around the year 150. Anne is the Hebrew name Hannah, which means grace. The Church has never accepted these writings as Scripture, and in the West they were long distrusted. Yet some of what they preserve, such as the presentation of Mary in the temple, entered the Church's devotion and liturgy.

According to the Gospel of James, Joachim was a pious and wealthy man who lived near Jerusalem. When he brought his generous offerings to the temple, the high priest Reuben turned him away. He and Anne were older and had no child. The story echoes that of Hannah, mother of the prophet Samuel, who had also been childless. In the tradition, an angel appeared to announce that Anne would bear a child, and the couple named their daughter Mary. They later brought her to the temple to be raised according to the law of Moses.

Devotion to Anne spread slowly and then widely. Churches were dedicated to her in the East as early as the sixth century, and in the West her cult grew strongly in the twelfth. The Orthodox honor Joachim and Anne as the ancestors of God. She came to be invoked by expectant mothers who asked for an easy birth, a healthy child, and enough milk to nurse it, and by widows, mothers, and workers in trades as varied as carpentry, mining, and lacemaking. Brittany and the Canadian province of Quebec honor her as patron, and so does the city of Caserta. Her great shrines include the cathedral of Apt in France and the basilicas of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. The Church remembers her together with Joachim on 26 July.

Saint Anne, pray for us.