Saint Joachim

Joachim is not mentioned in the Gospels. What is known of him comes from tradition, above all from the Gospel of James, an apocryphal text of the second century that first tells the story of Joachim, his wife Anne, and the miraculous birth of their daughter Mary. Later retellings, including the thirteenth-century Golden Legend, added more detail, so the account has to be read as pious tradition rather than history.

In that story Joachim is a rich and devout man who gives regularly to the poor. He and Anne are advanced in years and have no children. When he goes to offer sacrifice at the Temple, his offering is rejected, since childlessness was taken as a sign of divine displeasure. Joachim withdraws into the desert, where he fasts and does penance for forty days. Angels then appear to both Joachim and Anne and promise them a child. Joachim returns to Jerusalem and embraces Anne at the city gate. Their daughter is Mary, whose name is said to mean beloved of God. Tradition describes Anne as a woman of the tribe of Judah, descended from David, and Joachim as a Galilean.

An ancient belief held that a child born to an elderly mother who had given up hope was destined for great things. The Bible offers parallels in Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth, and the story of Joachim and Anne follows that pattern. Joachim's name means roughly that God lifts up.

The Eastern churches honored Joachim and Anne in their liturgy as early as the sixth century, especially around the feasts of the Conception and Nativity of Mary. In the West the devotion began timidly around the year 1000 and grew slowly. Joachim was added to the General Roman Calendar in 1584, and his feast was later moved several times. Since 1969 he has been honored together with Anne on 26 July. The Roman Martyrology remembers the two as the parents of the Virgin Mary, whose names have been kept by ancient Christian tradition. He is seen as the grandfather of Jesus and is invoked as a patron of fathers and grandparents.

Saint Joachim, pray for us.