26 JULY – SAINT ANNA (Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

Anna, of the tribe of Judah and of the royal house of David, is venerated by the Church as the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is believed that Mary was the only child of Anna and her husband Joachim. Saint Anna is often portrayed in art teaching Mary to read. She is the patroness of mothers and women in labour.

 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Uniting the blood of kings with that of pontiffs, the glory of Anna’s illustrious origin is far surpassed by that of her offspring, without compare among the daughters of Eve. The noblest of all, who have ever conceived by virtue of the command to “increase and multiply,” beholds the law of human generation pause before her as having arrived at its summit at the threshold of God: for, from her fruit God Himself is to come forth, the fatherless Son of the Blessed Virgin and the grandson of Anna and Joachim.

Before being favoured with the greatest blessing ever bestowed on an earthly union, the two holy grandparents of the Word made Flesh had to pass through the purification of suffering. Traditions which, though mingled with details of less authenticity, have come down to us from the very beginning of Christianity, tell us of these noble spouses subjected to the trial of prolonged sterility, and on that account despised by their people: of Joachim cast out of the temple and going to hide his sorrow in the desert, of Anna left alone to mourn her widowhood and humiliation. For exquisite sentiment this narrative might be compared with the most beautiful histories in Holy Scripture.

“It was one of the great festival days of the Lord. In spite of extreme sorrow, Anna laid aside her mourning garments, and adorned her head and clothed herself with her nuptial robes. And about the ninth hour she went down to the garden to walk. Seeing a laurel she sat down in its shade, and poured forth her prayer to the Lord God, saying: ‘God of my fathers, bless me and hear my supplication, as you blessed Sarah and gave her a son!’ And raising her eyes to Hheaven, she saw in the laurel a sparrow’s nest, and sighing she said: ‘Alas! Of whom was I born to be thus a curse in Israel? To whom will I liken me? I cannot liken me to the birds of the air, for the birds are blessed by you, O Lord. To whom will I liken me? I cannot liken me to the beasts of the earth, for they too are fruitful before you. To whom will I liken me? I cannot liken me to the waters, for they are not barren in your sight, and the rivers and the oceans full of fish praise you in their heavings and in their peaceful flowing. To whom will I liken me? I cannot liken me even to the earth, for the earth too bears fruit in season and praises you, O Lord.’ "And behold an Angel of the Lord stood by and said to her: ‘Anna, God has heard your prayer. You will conceive and bear a child, and your fruit will be honoured throughout the whole inhabited earth.’ And in due time Anne brought forth a daughter and said: ‘My soul is magnified this hour.’ And she called the child Mary, and giving her the breast, she intoned this canticle to the Lord: ‘I will sing the praise of the Lord my God: for He has visited me and has taken away my shame, and has given me a fruit of justice. Who will declare to the sons of Ruben that Anna is become fruitful? Hear, hear, O you twelve tribes: behold Anna is giving suck!” (Proto-evangelium Jacobi).

The feast of Saint Joachim, which the Church celebrates on the Sunday within the octave of his blessed daughter’s Assumption, will give us an occasion of completing the account of these trials and joys in which he shared. Warned from Heaven to leave the desert, he met his spouse at the golden gate which leads to the Temple on the east side. Not far from here, near the Probatica piscina, where the little white lambs were washed before being offered in sacrifice, now stands the restored basilica of Saint Anna, originally called Saint Mary of the Nativity. Here, as in a peaceful paradise, the rod of Jesse produced that blessed branch which the Prophet hailed as about to bear the flower that had blossomed from eternity in the bosom of the Father. It is true that Sephoris, Anna’s native city, and Nazareth, where Mary lived, dispute with the holy city the honour which ancient and constant tradition assigns to Jerusalem. But our homage will not be misdirected if we offer it today to Blessed Anna in whom were wrought the prodigies, the very thought of which brings new joy to Heaven, rage to Satan, and triumph to the world. Anna was, as it were, the starting-point of Redemption, the horizon scanned by the prophets, the first span of the heavens to be purpled with the rising fires of aurora; the blessed soil whose produce was so pure as to make the Angels believe that Eden had been restored to us. But in the midst of the aureola of incomparable peace that surrounds her, let us hail her as the land of victory surpassing the most famous fields of battle as the sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception where our humiliated race took up the combat begun before the throne of God by the Angelic hosts; where the serpent’s head was crushed, and Michael, now surpassed in glory, gladly handed over to his sweet Queen, at the first moment of her existence, the command of the Lord’s armies.

What human lips, unless touched like the prophet’s with a burning coal, could tell the admiring wonder of the Angelic Powers, when the Blessed Trinity, passing from the burning Seraphim to the lowest of the nine choirs, bade them turn their fiery glances and contemplate the flower of sanctity blossoming in the bosom of Anna? The Psalmist had said of the glorious City whose foundations were now hidden in her that was once barren: “The foundations thereof are in the holy mountains” (Psalms lxxxvi. 1) and the heavenly hierarchies crowning the slopes of the eternal hills, beheld in her heights to them unknown and unattainable, summits approaching so near to God, that he was even then preparing his throne in her. Like Moses at the sight of the burning bush on Horeb, they were seized with a holy awe on recognising the mountain of God in the midst of the desert of this world, and they understood that the affliction of Israel was soon to cease. Although shrouded by the cloud, Mary was already that blessed mountain whose base, i.e., the starting point of her graces, was set far above the summits where the highest created sanctities are perfected in glory and love.

How justly is the mother named Anna, which signifies grace, she in whom for nine months were centred the complacencies of the Most High, the ecstasy of the Angelic Spirits and the hope of all flesh! No doubt it was Mary, the daughter, and not the mother, whose sweetness so powerfully attracted the heavens to our lowly Earth. But the perfume first scents the vessel which contains it, and even after it is removed, leaves it impregnated with its fragrance. Moreover, it is customary to prepare the vase itself with the greatest care. It must be all the purer, made of more precious material, and more richly adorned, according as the essence to be placed in it is rarer and more exquisite. Thus Magdalene enclosed her precious spikenard in alabaster. The Holy Spirit, the preparer of heavenly perfumes, would not be less careful than men. Now the task of blessed Anna was not limited, like that of a material vase, to passively containing the treasure of the world. She furnished the body of her who was to give flesh to the Son of God. She nourished her with her milk. She gave to her, who was inundated with floods of divine light, the first practical notions of life. In the education of her illustrious daughter, Anna played the part of a true mother: not only did she guide Mary’s first steps, but she co-operated with the Holy Ghost in the education of her soul, and the preparation for her incomparable destiny until, when the work had reached the highest development to which she could bring it, she, without a moment’s hesitation or a thought of self, offered her tenderly loved child to him from whom she had received her.

“Sic fingit tabernaculum Deo,” thus she frames a tabernacle for God. Such was the inscription around the figure of Saint Anna instructing Mary, which formed the device of the ancient guild of joiners and cabinet makers. For they, looking upon the making of tabernacles in which God may dwell in our churches as their most choice work, had taken Saint Anna for their patroness and model. Happy were those times when the simplicity of our fathers penetrated so deeply into the practical understanding of mysteries which their infatuated sons glory in ignoring. The valiant woman is praised in the Book of Proverbs for her spinning, weaving, sewing, embroidering and household cares: naturally then, those engaged in these occupations placed themselves under the protection of the spouse of Joachim. More than once, those suffering from the same trial which had inspired Anna’s touching prayer beneath the sparrow’s nest, experienced the power of her intercession in obtaining for others, as well as for herself, the blessing of the Lord God.

The East anticipated the West in the public cultus of the grandmother of the Messiah. Towards the middle of the sixth century, a Church was dedicated to her in Constantinople. The Typicon of Saint Sabbas makes a liturgical commemoration of her three times in the year: on the 9th September, together with her spouse Saint Joachim, the day after the birthday of their glorious daughter; on the 9th December, on which the Greeks, a day later than the Latins, keep the feast of our Lady’s Immaculate Conception under a title which more directly expresses Saint Anna’s share in the mystery, and lastly, the 25th July, not being occupied by the feast of Saint James, which was kept on the 30th April, is called the Dormitio or precious death of Saint Anna, mother of the most holy Mother of God: the very same expression which the Roman Martyrology adopted later.

Although Rome, with her usual reserve, did not until much later authorise the introduction into the Latin Churches of a liturgical feast of Saint Anna, she nevertheless encouraged the piety of the faithful in this direction. So early as the time of Leo III (795-816) and by that illustrious Pontiff’s express command, the history of Anna and Joachim was represented on the sacred ornaments of the noblest basilicas in the Eternal City. The Order of Carmel, so devout to Saint Anna, powerfully contributed, by its fortunate migration into our countries, to the growing increase of her cultus. Moreover, this development was the natural outcome of the progress of devotion among the people to the Mother of God. The close relation between the two worships is noticed in a concession by which in 1381 Urban VI satisfied the desires of the faithful in England by authorising for that kingdom a feast of the blessed Anna. The Church of Apt in Provence had been already a century in possession of the feast, a fact due to the honour bestowed on that Church of having received almost together with the faith, the Saint’s holy body, in the first age of Christianity.

Since our Lord, reigning in Heaven, has willed that His blessed Mother should also be crowned there in her virginal body, the relics of Mary’s mother have become doubly dear to the world, first, as in the case of others, on account of the holiness of her whose precious remains they are, and then above all others, on account of their close connection with the mystery of the Incarnation. The Church of Apt was so generous out of its abundance that it would now be impossible to enumerate the sanctuaries which have obtained, either from this principal source or from elsewhere, more or less notable portions of these precious relics. We cannot omit to mention as one of these privileged places, the great Basilica of Saint Paul outside the walls. Saint Anna herself, in an apparition to Saint Bridget of Sweden, confirmed the authenticity of the arm which forms one of the most precious jewels in the rich treasury of that Church.

It was not until 1584 that Gregory XIII ordered the celebration of this feast of 26th July throughout the whole Church, with the rite of a double. Leo XIII in our own times (1879) raised it, together with that of Saint Joachim, to the dignity of a solemnity of second class. But before that, Gregory XV, after having been cured of a serious illness by Saint Anna, had ranked her feast among those of precept, with obligation of resting from servile work. Now that Saint Anna was receiving the homage due to her exalted dignity, she made haste to show her recognition of this more solemn tribute of praise. In the years 1623, 1624 and 1625, in the village of Keranna near Auray in Brittany, she appeared to Yves Nicolazic, and discovered to him an ancient statue buried in the field of Bocenno, which he tenanted. This discovery brought the people once more to the place, where, a thousand years before, the inhabitants of ancient Armorica had honoured that statue. Innumerable graces obtained on the spot spread its fame far beyond the limits of the province, whose faith, worthy of past ages, had merited the favour of the grandmother of the Messiah. And Saint Anne d’Auray was soon reckoned among the chief pilgrimages of the Christian world.

More fortunate than the wife of Elcana, who prefigured you both in her trial and by her name, you, O Anna, now sing the magnificent gifts of the Lord. Where is now the proud synagogue that despised you? The descendants of the barren one are now without number and all we, the brethren of Jesus, children like Him, of your daughter Mary, come joyfully led by our Mother to offer you our praises. In the family circle the grandmother’s feast day is the most touching of all, when her grandchildren surround her with reverential love, as we gather around you today. Many, alas, know not these beautiful feasts where the blessing of the earthly paradise seems to revive in all its freshness. But the mercy of our God has provided a sweet compensation. He, the Most High God, willed to come so near to us as to be one of us in the flesh to know the relations and mutual dependences which are the law of our nature; the bonds of Adam, with which He had determined to draw us and in which He first bound Himself. For, in raising nature above itself, He did not eliminate it. He made grace take hold of it and lead it to Heaven so that, joined together on earth by their Divine Author, nature and grace were to be united for all eternity. We, then, being brethren by grace of Him who is ever your grandson by nature, are, by this loving disposition of Divine Wisdom, quite at home under your roof. And today’s feast, so dear to the hearts of Jesus and Mary, is our own family feast.

Smile then, dear mother, on our chants and bless our prayers. Today and always be propitious to the supplications which our land of sorrows sends up to you. Be gracious to wives and mothers who confide to you their holy desires and the secret of their sorrows. Keep up, where they still exist, the traditions of the Christian home. Over how many families has the baneful breath of this age passed, blighting all that is serious in life, weakening faith, leaving nothing but languor, weariness, frivolity, if not even worse, in the place of the true and solid joys of our fathers. How truly might the Wise Man say at the present day: “Who will find a valiant woman?” She alone by her influence could counteract all these evils, but on condition of recognising in what her true strength lies: in humble household works done with her own hands; in hidden, self-sacrificing devotedness; in watchings by night; in hourly foresight; working in wool and flax, and with the spindle; all those strong things which win for her the confidence and praise of her husband; authority over all, abundance in the house, blessings from the poor whom she has helped, honour from strangers, reverence from her children; and for herself, in the fear of the Lord, nobility and dignity, beauty and strength, wisdom, sweetness and content, and calm assurance at the latter day (Proverbs xxxi. 10-31).

O blessed Anna, rescue society, which is perishing for want of virtues like yours. The motherly kindnesses you are ever more frequently bestowing on us have increased the Church’s confidence. Deign to respond to the hopes she places in you. Bless especially your faithful Brittany. Have pity on unhappy France, for which you have shown your predilection: first, by so early confiding to it your sacred body; later on, by choosing in it the spot where you would manifest yourself to the world, and again, quite recently entrusting to its sons the Church and seminary dedicated to your honour in Jerusalem. O you who love the Franks, who deign still to look on fallen Gaul as the kingdom of Mary, continue to show it that love which is its most cherished tradition. May you become known throughout the whole world. As for us, who have long known your power and experienced your goodness, let us ever seek in you, O mother, our rest, security, strength in every trial: for he who leans on you has nothing to fear on Earth, and he who rests in your arms is safely carried.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Philippi in Macedonia, the birthday of St. Erastus, who was appointed bishop of that place by the blessed Apostle St. Paul, and there crowned with martyrdom.

At Rome, on the Via Latina, the holy martyrs Symphronius, Olympius, Theodulus and Exuperia, who (as we read in the Acts of Pope St. Stephen) were burnt alive and thus obtained the palm of martyrdom.

At Porto, St. Hyacinth, martyr, who was first thrown into the fire, and then precipitated into a stream without being injured. Afterwards, under the emperor Trajan, being struck with the sword by the ex-consul Leontius, he terminated his life. His body was buried by the matron Julia on her own estate near Rome.

Also at Rome, St. Pastor, priest. His name is used to designate a cardinal’s title in the church of St. Pudentiana on the Viminal Hill.

At Verona, St. Valens, bishop and confessor.

In the monastery of St. Benedict, near Mantua, St. Simeon, monk and hermit, who was renowned for many miracles and at an advanced age rested in the Lord.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.