Today is – in the reformed, post-Conciliar calendar – the feast of both Sts. Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grandparents of the Savior. In the traditional calendar it is the feast of St. Anna.
Here is their entry from the 2005 Martyrologium Romanum.
Memoria sanctorum Ioachim et Annae, parentum immaculatae Virginis Dei Genetricis Mariae, quorum nomina ab antiquis traditionibus christianorum ex Iudaeis servata sunt.
I have relics of both Joachim and Anna.
Also sharing the reliquary are St. Nicholas (yes, Santa Claus) and St. Paul, the Apostle, and St. Blaise, of throat blessing fame.
Maybe someone would like to render the Latin of the 2005 MartRom entry into perfect, smooth English?
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The memory of the saints Joachim and Anne, parents of the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God Mary, whose names have been preserved from the Jews by the ancient traditions of the Christians.
Or more loosely:
The commemoration of the saints Joachim and Anne, parents of the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God Mary, whose names, coming originally from the Jews, have been preserved until now through the ancient traditions of the Christians.
I think that’s about right.
Memoria sanctorum Ioachim et Annae, parentum immaculatae Virginis Dei Genetricis Mariae, quorum nomina ab antiquis traditionibus christianorum ex Iudaeis servata sunt.
“The memorial of Saints Joachim and Anna, parents of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, whose names are preserved from the ancient traditions of the Christians, who originated from the Jews.”
???
Am I even remotely close? It feels awkward at the end.
Almost every day now, I am buoyed and enriched by their beauty when I check the corrected English translations of the proper prayers for Mass. For Saints Joachim and Anne today:
Collect
O Lord, God of our Fathers, who bestowed on Saints Joachim and Anne this grace, that of them should be born the Mother of your incarnate Son, grant, through the prayers of both, that we may attain the salvation you have promised to your people.
Prayer over the Offerings
Receive, we pray, O Lord, these offerings of our homage, and grant that we may merit a share in the same blessing which you promised to Abraham and his descendants.
Prayer after Communion
O God, who willed that your Only Begotten Son should be born from among humanity so that by a wonderful mystery humanity might be born again from you, we pray that, in your kindness, you may sanctify by the spirit of adoption those you have fed with the Bread you give your children.
I attended an External Solemnity of Ste. Anne who has recently been designated the patron saint of Detroit. It was very beautiful and the Epistle: Proverbs 31. 10-31 was sung by Tim Ferguson as subdeacon. After mass veneration of a first class relic of Ste. Anne was offered. Ste. Anne pray for us.
Today is a feast with special meanings for me, as it is the patronal feast of my baptismal parish, Ste. Anne’s Shrine, in Fall River MA, patroness of the French Canadians, and built with the sacrificial offerings of the poor members of that national parish around the turn of the last century.
I can recall attending the special celebrations, as a young ‘un with my grandparents, on this day.
http://www.stanneshrine.com
I can remember years ago a Novena to St. Anne for young women in search of a good husband. An old Irish priest used to kid the young girls as they entered the church for the novena, quipping, “St. Anne, send me a man, as fast as you can!”
My family and I are parishioners at St. Anne’s Church in San Diego (FSSP). This past Sunday we had a beautiful and moving Solemn High Mass in honor of St. Anne, with two priests and a deacon participating, along with 8 altar boys. We are so blessed in our parish to have full access to Tradition at all Masses and in all the Sacraments. And my family is also fortunate to have other connections to St. Ann… my wife and I were married at St. Ann’s Church in Milford, Connecticut, in 1998, and today, the Feast of St. Ann, is the anniversary of my wife’s baptism. St. Anne, pray for us, especially for our mothers and wives and daughters, that the Faith may grow in them and through them, for their salvation and for the salvation of the whole world.
I am curious, because I have never heard these names pronounced. What is the correct pronunciation of St. Joachim? I tend to mentally pronounce it as if it were of Hispanic derivation: Hwakeem.
@JenB: I’ve always heard it pronounced ‘Jo-a-kim’. (long o, short a, short i) FWIW.
Veni, Vidi, Velcro.
I came, I saw, I stuck around…;)
Father Z,
I am curious to know where you acquired the reliquary with all 5 saints. I believe relics of St. Joachim are quite rare. What a blessing it is for you have have it!
TN Cath,
There’s a Grimm Brothers’ tale re this:
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Dat_Mäken_von_Brakel_(1815)
It’s in Plattdüütsch (low German) which is pretty easy if you read it out loud. My stab at it:
One time a maid from Brakel went to St. Anne’s Chapel at the foot of the Hinnenborg, and because she wanted a husband, and thought there was no one else in the chapel, she sang,
“Oh, holy Saint Anne!
Help me soon to a man.
Thou knowest him well,
Suttmer Gate, he lives there,
And he has golden hair,
Thou knowest him well.”
But the sexton was standing behind the altar and heard that, so he cried in a screechy voice, “Thou’lt not get him! Thou’lt not get him!” The maiden thought that the child Mary who stood by her mother Anne had called out that to her, and was angry, and cried, “Pepperlepep, you stupid brat, hold your noise and let your mother speak!”
St Anne is my patron. I won’t be jealous of your relics… :)
On the Byzantine calendar, the 26th isn’t their feast, but the 25th is the Dormition of St Anne- it is funny how calendars work
When I was 4, my mother took me to the St. Anne novena in St. Anne, Illinois, where they have (you guessed it) a relic of St. Anne. I remember being very impressed with the old-fashioned wheel chair someone had left after being healed. Maybe I should get my act together and take my children next year, even though it is quite a drive. St. Anne is a popular patroness in our family, although my mother chose St. Mary for me instead.