“They yearned for the comforting of Israel and the Holy Spirit rested upon them.”
Most of us are familiar with beautiful pictures of the Annunciation depicting a very serene Mary in an idealised background. However, an image of Mary that remains with me is of her as a young woman making bread. Gabriel arrives in a very ordinary Palestinian home where the work of every day survival is going on. The world changing wonder of the Incarnation is announced, not in perfect surroundings and serenity, but to a somewhat floury Mary who is kneading dough.
Mary, who was not married, would have been living in her childhood home with her parents, traditionally known as Anna and Joachim. Living as Mary did in a society where pregnancy outside of marriage was punishable by stoning to death, what would have been more natural for her than to turn to her parents for help? Who but her parents could have eased her relationship with Joseph?
The names of Mary’s parents, of Jesus’ grandparents, are derived from the apocryphal sources of the second century ‘Protoevangelium of James’ and from the third century ‘Evangelium de nativitate Mariae’. According to these sources Anna was born in Bethlehem. She was married to Joachim, a relatively wealthy man, and they lived in Nazareth. In these sources the story of Mary’s birth echoes that of Samuel (1Sam: 1). In both stories, Hannah, Anna and Joachim prayed for a child and promised to dedicate their child to God. Hannah brought Samuel to the Temple and, according to some traditions, Anna and Joachim offered Mary to be brought up in the Temple.
Devotion to Anna and Joachim, as the parents of Mary, was known in the Eastern Church as early as the 4thcentury, while Pope Constantine probably introduced devotion to Anna in the 8th century. Joachim became popular the western Church in the 15th century. Devotion to Anna, as mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus, was popular in the Middle Ages and was later promoted by some of the post reformation popes.
The liturgical celebration of the feast of Anna and Joachim underlines their role as parents of Mary and grandparents of Jesus. We pray for salvation through their intercession. In the Eastern Orthodox liturgy Anna and Joachim are asked that they should ‘cease never to entreat the countenance of Almighty God on our behalf, in that we have acquired great boldness before him’ – what a lovely image of Anna and Joachim who, ‘in great boldness’ must have cared for, talked to, played with Jesus as a child!
The parents of Mary and the grandparents of Jesus were people who hoped for the coming of the Messiah. They are a hinge that connects all people of hope and longing to Jesus and as such continue to hold a special place in our hearts, they are a very human link to the events of the Incarnation: ‘They prayed for the comforting of Israel and the Holy Spirit rested on them’. (Gospel acclamation)
Why celebrate Joachim and Anna?
Maybe the answer lies in each of us, in our longing for God?
Like Anna and Joachim ‘if you have an obscure intuition that the truth of things is somehow better, greater, more wonderful than you deserve or desire, that the touch of God in your life stills you by its gentleness, that there is mercy beyond anything you could suspect, you are already drawn into the central mystery of salvation’. (Maria Boulding: The Coming of God)
Maybe, like Anna and Joachim, we could seek the courage to ‘pray for the comforting of Israel’ and for the Holy Spirit to rest on us and on our world:
“Let nothing trouble you
Let nothing scare you
All is fleeting.
God alone is unchanging
Patience obtains everything
Who possess God wants nothing
God alone suffices.” (Attributed to St Teresa of Avila)
Maggie Cascioli
