“Anne is the glorious tree from which bloomed a twig under Divine Influence. She is the consecrated ground which brought forth the Burning Bush. She is the sublime Heaven from whose heights the Star of the Sea neared its rising. She is the blessed barren woman, happy mother among mothers, from her pure womb came forth the shining temple of God, the sanctuary of the Holy Ghost, the Mother of God.“
Saint Jerome
“Joachim and Anne, how blessed a couple! All creation is indebted to you. For at your hands the Creator was offered a gift excelling all other gifts: a chaste mother, who alone was worthy of him. Joachim and Anne, how blessed and spotless a couple! You will be known by the fruit you have borne, as the Lord says: ‘By their fruits you will know them.‘ The conduct of your life pleased God and was worthy of your daughter. For by the chaste and holy life you led together, you have fashioned a jewel of virginity: she who remained a virgin before, during, and after giving birth. She alone for all time would maintain her virginity in mind and soul as well as in body. Joachim and Anne, how chaste a couple! While leading a devout and holy life in your human nature, you gave birth to a daughter nobler than the angels, whose queen she now is.“
Saint John Damascene
“Anne was the most chaste of virgins. From her very childhood she possessed the fullness of every virtue. She was being continually enlightened, and was constantly engaged in devout meditation. Her unceasing prayer was that the Redeemer might come quickly. Had Anne not been adorned with angelic purity she could never have become the mother of the Virgin of Virgins. Without purity the great miracle of Mary’s Immaculate Conception could never have taken place in her womb.“
Venerable Mary of Agreda, superior of a convent of Poor Clares in Spain in the 17th century who received private revelations about the life of the Blessed Virgin
The 26th July is the feast day of the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saints Joachim and Anna, the grandparents of Jesus. The Blessed Virgin, born in the holy city of Jerusalem, was the immaculate fruit entrusted by the grace of God to the marriage of these two very devout Jews.
One finds the Church of Saint Anne built over the birth place of Mary in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem, next to the Pools of Bethesda, and close to the Lion’s Gate and the Via Dolorosa. The building goes back to the reign of the Crusaders in the 12th century. Today, French monks take care of it.
Church of Saint Anne, Jerusalem 
Pools of Bethesda, Jerusalem
Let us learn a bit more about Mary‘s parents who loved her, raised her and taught her the truths of the faith of their forefathers by looking at parts of the apocryphal legends that have been circulating in the Catholic tradition since the first few centuries, for a while mostly in the East and later – since the High Middle Ages – also in the West, and that have informed the traditional celebrations connected with the feast day. Jacobus de Voragine relates them in his Golden Legend.
The line of David and the line of Aaron
First of all, these traditions have it that Saint Anna was a woman from the tribe of Aaron while her husband Saint Joachim was a descendant of the Davidic line. Jacobus de Voragine remarks therefore that the royal and the priestly tribes at some point in the history of the Jewish people came to be intertwined through ties of marriage.
“God willed that these privileged tribes should be mingled with each other by reason of the mystery, because the Lord Christ was to be born of them, and Christ, king and priest, would offer himself for us, would rule his followers as they struggled amid the evils of this life, and would crown them after they had won the fight. This is also suggested by the name of Christ, which means anointed, because in the Old Law only priests, kings, and prophets were anointed. Hence we are called Christians after Christ, and are also called a chosen generation and a kingly priesthood.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 537
Joachim and Anne do not occur in Sacred Scripture, or do they? Traditionally, the genealogy of Jesus given in the Gospel of Luke is seen as being the one of the Blessed Virgin, while the one in the Gospel of Matthew refers to Jesus‘ foster father Saint Joseph. Both lineages go back to King David, the one in Matthew through David‘s son Solomon and the one in Luke through David‘s son Nathan.
The last name in the genealogy that Saint Luke presents to us among the ancestors of Mary is “Heli“ or “Eli“. This is a short version of “(H)eliachim“, which in turn is a variation of “Joachim“. The two names have the same meaning: “God / Yahweh prepares“. Hannah or Anna, by the way, means “grace“ or “favor“.
How to tithe and give alms with Saints Joachim and Anna
“Joachim, a Galilean from the town of Nazareth, took Saint Anna, a native of Bethlehem, as his wife. They were both righteous and walked without reproach in all the commandments of the Lord. They divided all their goods into three parts, one part being reserved for the Temple and its ministers, one for transient strangers and the poor, and the third for their own needs and those of their household.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 537
Tithing and almsgiving were commanded by the Law received through Moses, but by giving a third of their income for the service of the priests and the temple worship of God, and another third for the poor, Saints Joachim and Anna were much more generous in these things than the Law required of them.
So they made sure to always set something aside for these purposes, giving first to the worship of their God, then to their neighbors in need – before using the rest for themselves. It shows that they tried acting in ways which are surely helpful in reinforcing the right kind of priorities in our hearts.
Waiting for a child and for the Messiah
“They lived for twenty years without offspring and made a vow to the Lord that if he granted them a child, they would dedicate it to the service of God. With this in mind they went up to Jerusalem for the three principal feasts. Once, when Joachim and his kinsmen traveled to Jerusalem for the feast of the Dedication, he went with the others to the altar to make his offering. When the priest saw him, he angrily ordered him away and upbraided him for presuming to approach the altar of God, declaring that it was not proper for one who was subject to the Law‘s curse to offer sacrifice to the Lord of the Law, nor for a sterile man, who made no increase to the people of God, to stand among men who begot sons.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 537
Waiting for offspring for twenty years, always praying and hoping, sounds like a difficult test of patience and faith. As we see, in those days, bearing many children was taken as a sign to be blessed by God, while barrenness was seen as a punishment or even a curse. The priest rebuking Joachim expresses exactly this opinion.
But Joachim and Anna were very devout people, walking blamelessly before the Lord their God. Their suffering was not a suffering resulting from the temporal punishment of grave sins of their own. So maybe we could see a penitential suffering of an intercessory kind in it: a suffering of making reparation to God for the sins committed by all the people of Israel by the steadfast faithfulness they showed throughout their trial.
The story of the barren woman receiving a special child of promise after years of faithful waiting and persevering occurs several times in the books of the Old Testament, and is deeply inscribed into the history of Israel: Abraham’s wife Sarah, Isaac’s wife Rebbeca, and Jacob’s wife Rachel – and Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel who would anoint King David:
“While her soul was bitter, she prayed to ADONAI and wept. So she made a vow and said, ‘ADONAI-Tzva‘ot, if You will indeed look upon the affliction of Your handmaid, remember me and not forget Your handmaid, but grant Your handmaid a son, then I will give him to ADONAI all the days of his life and no razor will ever touch his head.“
1 Samuel 1: 10-11
Elizabeth, the cousin of the Blessed Virgin Mary, suffered from infertility, too, and just like Hannah she received a son that would be a prophet and a Nazarite – Saint John the Baptist – pointing the people of Israel to their King.
But back to the traditional legends on the life of Saint Joachim and Saint Anna:
“Joachim, seeing himself thus rejected, was ashamed to go home and face the contempt of his kinsmen, who had heard the priest‘s denunciation. Instead he went and lived with his shepherds. Then one day an angel appeared with great brilliance to him when he was alone. He was disturbed by the apparition, but the angel told him not to be afraid and said: ‘I am an angel of the Lord, sent to announce to you that your prayers have been heard and your alms have ascended in the sight of the Lord. I have seen how you were put to shame, and heard the reproach of childlessness wrongly put upon you. God punishes not nature but sin, and therefore, when he closes a woman‘s womb, he does this in order to open it miraculously later on, and to make it known that what is born is not the fruit of carnal desire but of the divine generosity. Did not the first mother of your race suffer the shame of childlessness until she was ninety years old, and yet bore Isaac, to whom was promised the blessing of all nations? Was not Rachel barren for a long time and yet bore Joseph, who had power over all Egypt? Who was stronger than Samson or holier than Samuel? Yet they both had sterile mothers. Believe these reasons and examples, which show that delayed conceptions and infertile childbearing are usually all the more wonderful! So then, your wife will bear you a daughter and you will call her Mary. As you have vowed, she will be consecrated to the Lord from infancy and filled with the Holy Spirit from her mother‘s womb. She will not live outside among the common people but will abide in the Temple at all times, lest any sinister suspicion be aroused about her. And, as she will be born of an unfruitful mother, so, miraculously, the Son of the Most High will be born of her. His name will be Jesus, and through him all nations will be saved. And let this be a sign to you: when you arrive at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, Anna your wife will be there waiting for you. She has been worried because you were so late and will be glad at the sight of you.‘ With these words the angel left him.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 538
Joachim‘s devotion, prayers, and almsgiving were very pleasing to God. And so an angel is sent to comfort him in his distress and disgrace, reminding him of certain truths of the faith – like the one that God withholds the gift of new life at times to clearly show that He is the source and the giver of life and that, in fact, every human life conceived is a miracle of His grace – and promising the birth of a daughter that would live as one of the temple virgins before getting married.
These were consecrated young girls living in the Temple, devoted to prayer and to work that supported the priests, for example sewing and weaving vestments, and cleaning their blood-stained garments. At the age of 14 they were supposed to “return to their homes and be legally joined with their husbands“ (ibid. p. 539).
And even more than that: Joachim and his wife would become the grandparents of the long awaited Messiah for whose coming they had prayed…
“Meanwhile Anna was weeping bitterly, not knowing where her husband had gone, when the same angel appeared to her, revealed to her the same things he had told Joachim, and added that, for a sign, she should go to Jerusalem‘s Golden Gate, where she would meet her husband as he returned. So they met as the angel had predicted, and were happy to see each other and to be sure they were to have a child. They adored God and went to their home, joyfully awaiting the fulfillment of the divine promise.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 538
As it often happens with divine revelations, a sign is given to confirm the message and its divine origin. In the apocryphal legends on Joachim and Anna it is the sign of meeting one another on time at the Golden Gate in Jerusalem. The Golden Gate or Shushan Gate is a gate on the eastern side of the city – towards the Kidron Valley and the Mount of Olives.
Jewish tradition often refers to this gate as the “Gate of Mercy“ and the gate through which the Divine Presence and the Messiah enter Jerusalem, and according to Christian tradition Jesus passed into the city riding on a donkey on Palm Sunday through this very gate. It is very close to the temple area. Today it is sealed and one can only enter the eastern part – the Muslim Quarter – of Jerusalem through the Lion‘s Gate.
As husband and wife, as Joachim and Anna, are joyfully reunited at the Golden Gate, the moment encapsulates the future as foretold by the angel: the consecration of their daughter Mary to the Lord, and the Messianic mission of their grandchild…
“Blessed be the Name of ADONAI from now and forever. (…) He settles the barren woman in her home as a joyful mother of children. Halleluyah!“
Psalm 113: 2; 9
“My soul magnifies ADONAI, and my spirit greatly rejoices in God, my Savior. For He has looked with care upon the humble state of His maidservant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One has done a great thing for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is from generation to generation to the ones who fear Him. He has displayed power with His arm. He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down rulers from thrones and exalted humble ones. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty-handed. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering His mercy, just as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.“
Luke 1: 46-55
“Girl of utter beauty and delight, daughter of Adam and mother of God, blessed the loins and blessed the womb from which you come! Blessed the arms that carried you, and blessed your parents‘ lips, which you were allowed to cover with chaste kisses, ever maintaining your virginity. Rejoice in God, all the earth. Sing, exult and sing hymns. Raise your voice, raise it and do not be afraid.“
Saint John Damascene
“Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations. But these were men of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten; their prosperity will remain with their descendants, and their inheritance to their children’s children. Their descendants stand by the covenants; their children also, for their sake. Their posterity will continue for ever, and their glory will not be blotted out. Their bodies were buried in peace, and their name lives to all generations. Peoples will declare their wisdom, and the congregation proclaims their praise.“
Old Testament Reading for Holy Mass on the 26th July 2021: Sirach 44: 1; 10-15
Saint Joachim and Saint Anna, pray for us!