Happy Feast of the Grandparents!
On July 26, we celebrate the feast of the grandparents – Saints Joachim and Anne, parents of Our Blessed Mother Mary.
While don’t have a wealth of facts on Jesus’ maternal grandparents it is safe to say their faith, love, and trust in God must have been wonderfully strong and pure.
Saints Joachim and Anne are mentioned in writings that complement the bible – the Proto-Evangelium of James the Less. It includes the account of the life of Mary, beginning with Joachim and Anne longing for a child. Joachim went into the desert or wilderness to fast and pray for forty days and forty nights. Anne relentlessly prayed. One day when she was weeping, an angel appeared to her promising she would conceive. Joachim and Anne did not doubt God, and they vowed to consecrate their child to the Lord. When Mary was three the holy couple presented her to the priests at the temple. The priest at her reception said, “The Lord God has magnified your name for all generations; through you the Lord will reveal deliverance to the children of Israel in the last days.”
Researching the Hebrew meaning of the name Joachim you will discover it means God prepares, raised by Yahweh, and God has granted a son. In Hebrew, Anne means God has given grace.
We should have no doubt Joachim and Anne were overjoyed being the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We can only imagine the conversations and traditions Saint Anne and Joachim shared with her to make sweet Mary’s heart so blessed, ultimately being chosen to be the Mother of the Christ child.
As grandparents they surely enjoyed passing down their steadfast faith, stories, songs, and religious customs to young Jesus.
Today we can and should be doing the same for our children and grandchildren in our homes – the domestic church.
Make an effort to grow in faith outside the Mass.
Saints Joachim and Mary, pray for us.
