St Anna, Grand Mother of Jesus - A Woman of Faith

Icon of Saint Anna with child Mary - in Byzantine iconography

When I saw for the first time the parish dedicated to Saint Anne in Bijapur, one of the mission stations of the Jesuits in Karnataka in 1994, it intrigued me very much as a novice then. I had hardly heard anything much about St Anna except that she was the grandmother of Jesus. Since my return from Russia recently, I got involved in retreat ministry in our retreat house in Bangalore and have been meeting a number of Sisters belonging to different religious congregations who have either their congregations named after St Anna or have her as their patroness. Quite recently, I have been addressing religious congregations for various reasons and occasions. Therefore, I thought I should address this Saint Anna in an elaborate way.

St Joachim and St Anna in History and Tradition

On July 26th the Catholic Church remembers Saint Joachim and Saint Anna, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Despite the importance of their role as the maternal grandparents of Jesus, we do not know much about them. The Churches in the East and Orthodox Churches have a special devotion to St Anna. The beautiful iconography on St Anna adorns their Churches. Slavs (People coming from Slavic countries, e.g. Russia, Slovenia, Poland, etc ) name their girl child "Anna" quite frequently.  The Orthodox  Church celebrates the feast of St Joachim and St Anna, the very next day of the feast of the Nativity of Mary.  They are also called as "parents of God" «Богоотцы» because they are considered as the immediate ancestors of our Lord Jesus Christ. This might be because kinship relationships and unbridled  connectivity have determining factors in tracing the roots of family ties. According to Christian apocrypha they also came from the royal line of King David. Some versions say that they lived in Jerusalem while others in Nazareth. The Byzantine liturgy has special prayers dedicated for Anna and Joachim. 

God's Chosen Couple

Regarding Joachim, we know that he was a shepherd from Jerusalem but some others say from Nazareth. Whatever information that we have today about him is from the Christian Apocrypha books (II century) especially the Proto-Gospel of James. It also gives the genealogy of Joachim.  "Panfir gave birth to Varpaphir, and Varpaphir gave birth to Joachim, the father of the Mother of God."  He married Anna, the youngest daughter of the priest Matthan of the high priestly family of Aaron. According to her father, she was from the tribe of Levies, and according to her mother, from the tribe of Judah. According to this apocrypha, Joachim and Anna did not have children until in their senior years. When the high priest denied Joachim the right to make a sacrifice to God, since he “did not create offspring,” he withdrew into the wilderness, and his wife remained at home alone. At that time, both of them had a vision of an angel who announced: "The Lord heeded your prayer, you will conceive and give birth, and all people will talk about your offspring throughout the world." As it happens to so many other personalities of the Bible like Abraham and Sarah, Zechariah and Elizabeth, the rather elderly couple when, one day, while Joachim was at work in the fields as usual, an angel appeared to announce the birth of a child, and Anna also had the same vision.

You may find this quite interesting: According to the Proto-Gospel of James, Joachim and Anna met at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem. And as Joachim approached with his flocks, and Anna, standing at the gate, saw Joachim walking, and, running up, hugged him, and said: “I know now that the Lord has blessed me: being a widow, I am no longer a widow, being barren, I now will conceive!" And Joachim found peace in his house that day (Proto-Gospel of James 4:7-8). After that, Joachim came to the Jerusalem temple, saying: "If the Lord has mercy on me, then the priest's golden plate will show me." And Joachim brought his gifts, and looked intently at the plate, coming up to the altar of the Lord, and saw no sin in himself (Proto-Gospel of James 5:1-2)). Anna conceived, "the months allotted to her passed, and Anna gave birth in the ninth month." The date of conception - December 8 (Today it is the feast of Immaculate Conception in the Catholic Church) - is set based on the fact that it is 9 months from the date of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (September 8)!

From the Lenses of Apocrypha Anna and Mary
The four canonical Gospels do not mention the name of the mother of Mary. Anna appears only in the apocryphal tradition, in particular in the "Proto-Gospel of James", as well as in the "Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew" and "The Golden Legend". The tradition was also influenced by the "Word for the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos (Mother of God)" by Andrew of Crete (VII-VIII centuries). According to Jewish custom, on the 15th day after the birth of the baby, she was given the name indicated by the angel of God - Mary. Out of gratitude to the Lord, the parents promised to give the child to the temple. Mary was inducted into the Temple at the age of three. Joachim and Anna put their daughter on the first step, and, to everyone's amazement, three-year-old Mary, without outside help, ascended to the very top, where she was received by the high priest Zechariah.

This is how their daughter Mary was born. Even though, the Bible puts emphasis on a male child while announcing the birth by an angel, in the case of Mary it was a girl. So the parents Anna and Joachim called their little girl Mary, which means “loved by God.” Through the genealogy of Jesus we can be certain that they lived in Nazareth, where they educated Mary, teaching her the law of Moses. This is the place where Mary received the announcement that Jesus would be born to her. We do not know when Joachim and Anna died, and for many centuries their memory remained in the shadows.

Influence of Mother Anna on Her Daughter Mary

We might speak about Joachim and Anna only by learning who Mary was. The parents are known by their children. Just as Jesus says, "every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit (Mat 7:17). "For every tree is known by its own fruit" (Lk 6:44). Mary's sense of meekness, lowliness (The Anawim of Yahweh), gentleness, courage, deep faith in Yahweh, ready to embrace the challenge of impossible must have derived from her parents. Certainly, Anna might have made a significant impact on her daughter. If a tree is known by its fruits then a person is known by one's deeds. In Jewish cultures, it is the mother who had more influence on their children than their father. The impact of Anna on her daughter Mary in cultivating values and Jewish customs must have been exceptionally strong and bold.

Saint Anna is invoked as the protector of pregnant women. Through her intercession three great favours are obtained from God. They are: A happy birth, a healthy child, and sufficient milk to be able to raise the baby. And she is the patron of many jobs related to her duties as mother, including washerwomen and embroiderers.

As the history tells us St. Joachim only found space in the liturgical calendar in 1584: initially on March 20th, moving to Sunday in the octave of the Assumption in 1738, then to August 16th in 1913, before rejoining his holy wife on July 26th with the new liturgical calendar.

Inspiration and Dedication

There are many Churches dedicated to St Anna. The cult of St Anna became popular in the 6th century in the East, and in the 10th century in the West. Although the information about Mary’s parents is found only in an early apocryphal writing that gives many miraculous and highly-coloured stories about the early life of the Virgin Mary. It also speaks about Mary who was already chosen as the Mother of God through an illustration that speaks about white veil that was dawned on her as mark of her election to the divine motherhood. Certainly, both Joachim and Anna must have had some idea that their daughter would become someone one day. 

At the moment of consenting to the Incarnation Mary took the most important decision ever taken by any human being, which should certainly to a great extent,  attributed to the work of her parents who were of true Jews who believed in the prophesies of Isaiah and the daughter did as well. "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and she will call Him Immanuel (Isaiah7:14). If the Holy Spirit gave her the strength to take the right decision of her life; but her parents’ training gave her the wisdom to choose.

May this holy couple Saint Joachim and Saint Anna continue to inspire us. May the words of the Scripture "surely you will have hope for the future and your wishes will come true" may find true expression in our lives (Proverbs 23:18).

A very happy feast to all the Religious Sisters who celebrate their feast today!

Olvin Veigas, SJ

26 July 2020

The feast of St Joachim and St Anna