Elena 
Who was St. Anne?
Tradition tells us that St. Anne and St. Joachim longed for a child but suffered some kind of infertility. After fervent prayer, an angel visited both of them at the same time (but in two different locations!) to announce that they would be parents. They ran to tell each other the happy news. Isn’t that just like happily married couples? They want to share good things with each other first!
We also know from tradition that St. Anne played a big part in making sure her teenage daughter found a worthy husband. Young Mary had many suitors and it was hard to decide who would be the best husband. Should she marry the rich merchant? The handsome laborer from the next town? Or maybe that kind carpenter? It was St. Anne’s idea to have the suitors leave their walking staffs outside overnight. In the morning, one of the walking sticks was covered in lovely Lillies and that stick belonged to St. Joseph!
I like to think that she cuddled Baby Jesus, played with Him, and watched Him when his parents were taking care of the home and carpentry business. In that way, she was like our own grandmothers.
Mary Reed Newland’s “The Year and Our Children” tells us that St. Anne is the patroness of old clothes dealers, seamstresses, lace workers, housekeepers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, stablemen, and broom makers. She is invoked against poverty and can be called up to help find lost objects.
Her color is green and she is frequently portrayed wearing green in art and sculpture. her symbol is the cradle with a young Mary. She is also often portrayed as instructing her young daughter.
On a personal note –
When I reverted back to my Catholic Faith and truly started living out the Liturgical Year, this quickly became one of my favorite feast days. I’ve written a lot here about my own grandmother. Some of it isn’t so nice. But I have a lot of terrific memories of my grandmother too. She took care of us into her home to live and she babysat us while my mom was at work. She taught me to bake, sew, and hunt for mushrooms and she told me stories. I truly loved her with all of my heart when I was a little girl.
Maybe that’s why the idea of Jesus having a beloved grandma appeals to me so much!
Then I had the blessing of watching my own mother become a grandma. When she sang songs to my children, held their hands as they walked, or told them stories, I remembered how she did all of that for me and my sister. It was a gift for me as an adult, to see my mom mothering my children.
So when my mother was still alive, this was the day we celebrated Grandparent’s Day!
Remember your grandparents on the Feast of St. Joachim and St. Anne! The REAL Grandparents DAY!
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How to Celebrate Catholic Grandparents Day!
I think this passage is also important:
From the Saint of the Day!
This is the “feast of grandparents.” It reminds grandparents of their responsibility to establish a tone for generations to come: They must make the traditions live and offer them as a promise to little children. But the feast has a message for the younger generation as well. It reminds the young that older people’s greater perspective, depth of experience and appreciation of life’s profound rhythms are all part of a wisdom not to be taken lightly or ignored.
We think the best way to honor the feast of St. Joachim and St. Anne is to do something lovely for grandparents. Little girls might dress their best dolls as the tiny Mary this day and lay them in flower bedecked cradles.
My grandmothers and my mother have both passed. I will pray for their souls today and remember the many blessings they brought to my life.
And now I am a grandmother too! It’s even more important, I think, to teach my granddaughter her bible stories, prayers, and Catholic Traditions so that they become a part of her and she will have them for all of her life!
A word to Grandmas
Today is a special day for you to remember to follow St. Anne’s example. I blogged about this many years ago, but it still holds true today.
You reap what you sow. You can’t be available and self-sacrificing now? Then don’t expect your children and your grandchildren to be available and self-sacrificing later. The truth is that in 20 years when perhaps you need help dressing, feeding yourself, wiping yourself after going to the bathroom, or even when you are just feeling lonely, your offspring and their prodigy will do just exactly as you have taught them.
They will make time for themselves and if they can fit you in, (and that’s a big if because it’s not exactly like you will have earned a spot of honor in their hearts and minds with all of the memory-making you’re not doing)it will be, as you say, on their own terms. This means you’ll probably spend plenty of time alone, lonely, hungry, and sitting in your own waste unless you pay a stranger to do be your family for hire. When the inevitable happens, yours will be the neglected grave site that no one visits.
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung
Sir Walter Scott
How to Celebrate!
When mom was alive, we would make a point to visit her on this day, or close to it, and spend some time and share a treat. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to make this a nice day for a grandparent. Just making the time to do something is the most important.
My mom was awesome at passing on the faith to us. A Christian all of her life, when converted to Catholicism in her late teens.
This feast day was always very special for Mom – she even got married on St. Anne’s Feast Day!
She made sure to pass these things on to us. And even though the Catholic High School she sacrificed to send us to did little to nurture or grow that faith (and in some ways was really an occasion for sin) both my sister and I found our way back to the faith as adults.
When mom passed on, one of the first purchases I made with some of the money mom left me was this statue of St. Anne and her daughter Mary.
I love it for a number of reasons – it is a good reminder that even Mary needed some loving guidance from her mother, it reminds me to provide loving guidance to my own children, especially my daughters, and it is a nice reminder of what my mother did all her life for me and my sister and then later as a grandmother to all of her grandchildren.
Pope Benedict’s Grandparent’s prayer:
Lord Jesus,
you were born of the Virgin Mary,
the daughter of Saints Joachim and Anne.
Look with love on grandparents the world over.
Protect them! They are a source of enrichment
for families, for the Church and for all of society.
Support them! As they grow older,
may they continue to be for their families
strong pillars of Gospel faith,
guardians of noble domestic ideals,
living treasuries of sound religious traditions.
Make them teachers of wisdom and courage,
that they may pass on to future generations the fruits
of their mature human and spiritual experience.
Lord Jesus,
help families and society
to value the presence and role of grandparents.
May they never be ignored or excluded,
but always encounter respect and love.
Help them to live serenely and to feel welcomed
in all the years of life which you give them.
Mary, Mother of all the living,
keep grandparents constantly in your care,
accompany them on their earthly pilgrimage,
and by your prayers, grant that all families
may one day be reunited in our heavenly homeland,
where you await all humanity
for the great embrace of life without end. Amen!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
St. Anne Links on Diigo.
See the series about St. Anne on the Under Her Starry Mantle Blog.
Equipping Catholic Families
Via Catholic Cuisine – Green and red are the colors for St. Anne – Red for love and green for new life and comfort.
Follow Elena LaVictoire’s board st. anne on Pinterest.
[…] story of Mary’s birth is somewhat familiar. Joachim and Anne were two holy people, married for many years without being able to conceive a child. But by remaining faithful to […]