Hail, Saintly parents of the Virgin Mary

"St Joachim and St. Anne meeting at the Golden Gate" Giotto

This depicts the moment when, according to tradition, an Angel has just informed St. Anne she is unexpectedly pregnant

Today we celebrate the feast day of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, the parents of the Virgin Mary.   We know their names and story chiefly from a second century apocryphal text called "The Protoevangelium of James."  According to this tradition, Joachim and Anne were a pious, prosperous, childless couple living in Jerusalem who suffered great shame on account of Anne's barren condition.  They beseeched Our Lord to take away this shame, and Our Lord sent an angel to each of them to announce that their petition had been granted.   At first, the cult of Saints Joachim and Anne spread mainly in the East.   During the fourth century, a church was built (possibly by St. Helena) upon the site of St. Joachim and St. Anne's Jerusalem home, where their tombs were venerated until the ninth century, when the church was converted to a Muslim school.   In the thirteenth century, Jacobus de Voragine included the story of St. Joachim and St. Anne in "The Golden Legend," whereupon veneration of Saints Joachim and Anne became very popular in the West.  Their feast was extended to the universal Latin Church in 1584.

Relics of St. Anne

The supposed relics of St. Anne were brought from the Holy Land to Constantinople in 710 and were kept in the church of St. Sophia as late as 1333.  According to another tradition, the body of St. Anne was brought to Apt in Southern France by St. Lazarus, the friend of Christ, was hidden by St. Auspicius (d. 398), and found again during the reign of Charlemagne; these relics were installed in a magnificent chapel in 1664.  A foot of St. Anne is venerated in Douai, and  the head of St. Anne was kept at Mainz up to 1510, when it was stolen and brought to Düren in Rheinland.

Patronage of St. Anne

St. Anne is the patroness of Brittany.  Her miraculous picture (feast, 7 March) is venerated at Notre Dame d'Auray, Diocese of Vannes.  In Canada, where she is the principal patron of the province of Quebec, the shrine of St. Anne de Beaupré is well known. St. Anne is patroness of women in labour.