Anything under the sun
Good Saint Anne
St. Anne is the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary and therefore, is the grandmother in flesh of Jesus Christ. In the womb of St. Anne happened the Mystery of the Immaculate Conception of Virgin Mary after twenty years of barren married life with her husband, Joachim.
The pious tradition tells us that one time Joachim presented a sacrifice at the temple of Jerusalem. The high priest rejected it because Joachim was childless – a disgrace according to Jewish custom.
Joachim went to isolation and promised: “I shall not return home neither shall I eat nor drink till the Lord my God shall look down upon me.” At the same time St. Anne mourned her barrenness praying: “O God of my father, bless me and regard my prayer as Thou didst bless the womb of Sarah and grant her a son.” Then looking up a tree that moment, she beheld a sparrow’s nest with the mother bird and its young. She pleaded to God not to deny to her what he granted to the birds of the air.
The prayers of St. Joachim and St. Anne were answered with a child they named Mary which means “Star of the Sea.”
St. Anne which means “grace” is really a grace from God to humankind. For this, St. John Damascus saluted her “blessed thrice art thou, O St. Anne who didst receive from God and bring forth the blessed child from whence proceeded Christ, the Flower of Life.”
For centuries since the days of the early Christians, St. Anne has been the refuge childless couples parents of wayward children, patroness of marital peace and happiness and model of good and holy motherhood.
At the main altar of Molo Church, St. Anne is depicted as instructing the Child Virgin Mary on the Holy Scriptures. This makes her an ideal patroness of the cathechists.
It has been said sometime on March 13, 1658 a church in honor of St. Anne was being built in Beaupre, Canada. Luis Guimont who was sick manifested his deep faith in St. Anne and with much difficulty managed to bring three stones to the church’s foundation. He was suddenly and completely cured.
In another instance, a group of pilgrims from a parish of St. Anne in Europe went to the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. With the group was a little crippled girl. Despite her bathing at the miraculous waters of Lourdes, she was not cured.
Indeed, strong is the intercessory power of St. Anne in heaven that she told St. Bridget: “Know how full of mercy, goodness and affection I am for all who love me. Those who live chastely and peacefully in the state of matrimony, I will love and protect in a special manner. I will grant their petition whenever they take refuge in me.”