Saints Anne and Joachim

Anne and Joachim are Mary’s parents, and they never appear in the Gospels: the canonical texts don’t mention her parents even once. Their story is first told in a second-century apocryphal text, the Protoevangelium of James, and then in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew; over the centuries it gathered more and more details, all the way to the Golden Legend. It tells of an elderly, childless couple, of Joachim humiliated at the Temple because being unable to have children was considered a punishment, of his retreat among the shepherds, and of the angel’s announcement to both of them. Their meeting at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem is one of the most painted scenes in the history of art — Giotto’s version, in the Scrovegni Chapel, may be the most beautiful. The cult of Anne is very ancient in the East, where John Damascene, Epiphanius of Salamis and Sophronius of Jerusalem preached about her. In the West it spread later, and in 1584 Gregory XIII extended the memorial to the whole Church. Saint Anne is patron of mothers, of women in labor and of grandmothers, which is why today, in Italy, she has in practice taken on Grandparents’ Day as well. In the South it’s a very common name, often shared with the mother’s mother. If your name is Anne or Joachim, today is your name day.