St. Anne

According to Christian tradition, St. Anne was the mom of the Virgin Mary, wife of St. Joachim, & was Jesus’ maternal grandma.

Her name isn’t in the Bible’s canonical Gospels. In writing, Anne’s name, & Joachim’s come from New Testament apocrypha. The Gospel of Thomas (written circa 150 AD) seems to be the earliest that mentions them. She’s mentioned in the Quran, but not by name.

The Immaculate Conception was eventually made dogma by the Catholic Church following an increased devotion to Anne in the 12th century. In Eastern Christianity dedications start as early as 6th century.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Anne & Joachim are attributed to the title Ancestor of God. Both the Nativity of Mary & the Presentation of Mary are celebrated as 2 of the 12 Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church.

The Dormition of Anne is also a minor feast in Eastern Christianity. In Lutheranism, it’s believed that Martin Luther chose to enter religious life as an Augustinian friar after invoking St. Anne was jeopardized by lightning.

In the 4th century, & in the 15th century, a belief arose that Mary was conceived of Anne without original sin. The Immaculate Conception is often confused with the Annunciation of the Incarnation (Mary’s virgin birth of Jesus). The 13th century Speculum Maius includes information regarding the life of St. Anne.

In the Eastern church, the veneration of Anne herself may go back as far as circa 550, when Justinian built a church in Constantinople in her honor. The earliest pictorial sign of her veneration in the West in an 8th century fresco in the church of Santa Maria Antique, Rome.

The Feast of the Conception of the Virgin Mary had reached southern Italy by the 9th century. In the Latin Church, St. Anne wasn’t venerated. Except, perhaps, in the south of France, before the 13th century. A shrine at Douai (in northern France) was 1 of the early centers of devotion to St. Anne in the West.

The Anna Selbdritt was a type of iconography showing 3 generations of the “Holy Family,” St. Anne, the Virgin Mary, & Jesus (grandma, mom, son). This style of iconography emphasized the humanity of Jesus. It drew on the earlier conventions of the Seat of Wisdom. (The Seat of Wisdom is/are icons/sculptures that shows the Virgin Mary is seated on a throne with Jesus, as a kid, on her lap.) This was popular in northern Germany in the 1500s.

Two well-known shrines to St. Anne is that of Ste-Anne-d’Auray in Brittany (France) & that of Ste.-Anne-de-Beaupre near the city of Quebec. The number of pilgrims to the Basilica of Ste.-Anne-de-Beaupre is the greatest of St. Anne’s Feast Day (July 26), & the Sunday before the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (September 8). In 1892, Pope Leo XIII sent a relic of St. Anne to the church.

By the middle of the 7th century, a distinct feast day, the Conception of St. Anne (Maternity of Holy Anne) celebrating Mary by St. Anne, was observed at the Monastery of St. Sabas.

It’s now known in the Greek Orthodox Church as the feast of “The Conception by St. Anne of the Most Holy Theotokos.” It’s celebrated on December 9th. In the Catholic Church, the Feast of Saints Anne & Joachim is celebrated on July 26. The alleged relics of St. Anne was brought from the Holy Land to Constantinople in 710 & was kept there in the church of St. Sophia as late as 1333.

During the 12th & 13th centuries, returning crusaders & pilgrims from the East brought St. Anne’s relics to some churches, including most famously those at Apt, in Provence, Ghent, & Chartres. St. Anne’s relics have been preserved & venerated in the many cathedrals & monasteries dedicated to her name.

For example, in Austria, Canada, Germany, Italy, & Greece in the semi-autonomous Mount Athos, & the city of Katerini. Duren has been the main place of pilgrimage for Anne since 1506, when Pope Julius II decreed that her relics should be kept there, after they were stolen from the church of St. Stephen in Mainz.

The Church of St. Anne in Beit Guvrin National Park was built by the Byzantines & the crusaders in the 12th century. This is known in Arabic as Khirbet Sandahanna, the mound of Maresha being called Tell Sandahanna.

St. Anne is the patroness of unmarried women, housewives, women in labor or who want to be pregnant, grandmothers, moms, & educators. She’s also a patroness of horseback riders, cabinet-makers, & miners.

As the mom of Mary, this devotion to St. Anne as the patron of miners arises from the medieval comparison between Mary & Jesus & the precious metals: gold & silver. Anne’s womb was considered the source from which these precious metals were mined.

St. Anne is the patron saint of Brittany (France); Cuenca (Ecuador); Chinandega (Nicaragua); the Mi’kmaq people of Canada; Castelbuono (Sicily); Quebec (Canada); Santa Ana (California); Norwich (Connecticut); Detroit (Michigan); Adjunta (Puerto Rico); Santa Ana & Jucuaran (El Salvador); Berlin (New Hampshire); Santa Ana Pueblo, Seama, & Taos (New Mexico); Chiclana de la Frontera, Marsaskala, Tuadela, Atarfe & Fasnia (Spain); Town of Sta Ana Province of Pampanga, Molo, Iloilo City, Balasan; Iloilo, Hagnoy, Santa Ana, Taguig City, St. Anne Shrine, Malicboy, Pagbilao, Quezon, & Malinao, Albay (Philippines); Santana (Brazil); St. Anne (Illinois); Sainte Anne Island; Baie Sainte Anne & Praslin Island (Seychelles); Bukit Mertajam & Port Klang (Malaysia); Kl’ucove (Slovakia) & South Vietnam.

The parish church of Vatican City is Sant’ Anna dei Palafrenieri. There’s a shrine dedicated to St. Anne in the Woods in Bristol, United Kingdom.

Anne is also revered in Islam, recognized as a highly spiritual woman & as the mom of Mary. She’s not named in the Quran. She’s called “the wife of Imran.” The Quran describes her remaining childless until old age. One day, Anne saw a bird feeding its young while sitting in the shade of a tree, which awakened her desire to have kids of her own.

She prayed for a kid & eventually conceived. Imran, her husband, died before the kid was born. Anne expected the unborn kid to be a boy, so she vowed to dedicate “him” to isolation & service in the Second Temple.

Anne had a daughter (Mary) instead. Anne named her: Mary. Anne’s words upon delivering Mary reflect as a great mystic, realizing that while she’d had wanted a son, this daughter was God’s gift to her.

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The Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary is an optional memorial celebrated in the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church on September 12. It has been a universal Roman Rite feast since 1684, when Pope Innocent XI included it in the General Roman Calendar to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

It was initially removed from the current Church calendar in the liturgical reform following Vatican II. But it was restored by Pope John Paul II in 2002 along with the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus in January.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the feast is celebrated on September 7 in the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate.

Promoters of veneration of the Holy Name of Mary include St. Anthony of Padua, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, & St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. A number of religious orders such as the Cistercian & the Servites, customarily give each member “Mary” as part of their religious name as a sign of honor & of entrustment to the Virgin.

The feast is a counterpart to the Feast for the Holy Name of Jesus on January 3. Its object is to commemorate all the privileges granted upon Mary by God & all the graces received through her intercession & mediation.

The feast day began in 1513 as a local celebration in Cuenca, Spain, celebrated on September 15. In 1587, Pope Sixtus V moved the celebration to September 17. Pope Gregory XV extended the celebration to the Archdiocese of Toledo (Spain) in 1622.

In 1666, the Discalced Carmelites received permission to recite the Divine Office of the Name of Mary 4x a year. In 1671, the feast was extended to the whole Kingdom of Spain. From there, the feast spread. It soon extended to the Kingdom of Naples.

In 1683, the Polish King John Sobieski arrived in Vienna with his army. Before the Battle of Vienna, Sobieski placed his troops under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In 1684, to celebrate the victory, Pope Innocent XI added to the Roman calendar, assigning to it the Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity of Mary. An octave, in this case, is the 8th day after a feast, counted inclusively. So this always falls on the same day of the week as the feast itself. The Nativity of Mary refers to a Christian feast day celebrating the birth of the Virgin Mary.

The reform of Pope Pius X in 1911 restored to prominence the celebration of Sundays in their own right, avoiding their being replaced by celebrations from the sanctorale. The sanctorale is 1 of the 2 main cycles that, running concurrently, comprise the Liturgical year in Roman Catholicism, defined by the General Roman Calendar, & used by a variety of Christian denomination.

The celebration of the Holy Name of Mary was moved to September 12. Later in the same century, the feast was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 as part of its reform by Pope Paul VI. As something of a duplication of the September 8 feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

But it didn’t cease to be a recognized celebration of the Roman Rite, being mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on September 12. In 2002, Pope John Paul II restored the celebration to the General Roman Calendar.

William Joseph Chaminade chose the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary as the patronal feast of the Society of Mary (Marianists). Rather than a day commemorating a particular dogma or devotion in order to focus on the person of Mary.

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Saint Methodius writes:

“For if to the ark, which was the image and type of thy sanctity, such honor was paid of God that to no one but to the priestly order only was the access to it open, or ingress allowed to behold it… what sort of veneration is due to thee from us who are of creation the least, to thee who art indeed a queen; to thee, the living ark of God, the Lawgiver; to thee, the heaven that contains Him who can be contained of none?”

- from John Mark Hicks, “Uzzah and the Ark: Exegetical Considerations”

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Happy Birthday Mama Mary!

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