“Happy couple, Joachim and Anne! With you all creation feels indebted,” said Saint John Damascene.
Editorial Staff (27/07/2026, Gaudium Press) If the Virgin is the Mother of God, as she truly is, logic indicates that Saint Anne and Saint Joachim, whose feast we commemorate today, are the grandparents of God.
Let us recall the praise that the great Saint John Damascene offers them:
“Happy couple, Joachim and Anne! With you all creation feels indebted. For it was through you that the creature offered to the Creator the most valuable of all gifts, namely, the pure mother, the only one who was worthy of the Creator. (…)
“You obtained from God that which surpasses nature: you brought forth for the world the Mother of God, who was a mother without the participation of any man.
“Leading throughout your lives a holy and devout life, you brought forth a daughter who is superior to the angels and is now Queen of the angels.
“O most good and sweetest young woman! O daughter of Adam and Mother of God! Blessed the father and mother who brought you forth! Blessed the arms that carried you.” (1)
Who they were
The historical sources concerning the holy couple were collected by the early Fathers of the Church, some of whom were contemporaries of the Apostles. (2)
Saint Joachim was a descendant of David, and Saint Anne (or Santana), whose name, in Hebrew Hanna, means “grace,” was a descendant of Aaron.
Like most young women in Israel, Anne married very early and, having reached almost old age, had not borne children, a circumstance considered by the Jews to be a kind of curse.
For this reason, she and her husband were scorned and even publicly humiliated, including by priests of the Temple.
Yet although these humiliations were painful, they accepted everything with peace of soul and resignation, often in a heroic manner.
Such adversities, which were for the couple the thorns of the roses and the pebbles on the road, came to an end one day when, already advanced in years, an angel, probably the Archangel Saint Gabriel, appeared to them and announced the birth of an offspring, when they were already living the twilight of their lives.
The Golden Pearl of Creation
Saint Anne then gave birth to a beautiful little girl to whom they gave the name Miriam (in Latin, “Mary”), which in Hebrew means “Sovereign Lady.”
According to some researchers, this name comes from the Sanskrit Maryáh, which literally means “purity, virtue, virginity,” which would be entirely appropriate for naming the Pearl of Creation.
Mary was chosen by God to be the Mother of His Divine Son Jesus, having been conceived without original sin, full of grace according to the greeting of the Angel Gabriel, co-Redemptrix, and universal mediatrix of all graces.
It was to this pure offspring of Joachim and Anne that we mortals were given as Mother, according to the words of Jesus to Saint John the Evangelist: “Son, behold your Mother.” (Jn 19:27)
In the words of the great Marian doctor, Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort, the Blessed Virgin Mary
“is the supreme masterpiece of the Most High, whose knowledge and possession He reserved to Himself. Mary is the admirable Mother of the Son, (…) and the faithful spouse of the Holy Spirit, where He alone may enter. Mary is the sanctuary, the resting place of the Most Holy Trinity, where God is more magnificent and more divinely present than in any other place in the universe, not excepting His throne above the cherubim and seraphim.” (3)
Therefore, today, while celebrating the parents, we are also celebrating the daughter, the Virgin; and by celebrating Our Lady we also celebrate the Son, who is God. This is a divine chain, whose first link was two nearly elderly people, faithful, God-fearing, and lovers of God.
…………………………….
(1) Saint John Damascene, Nativitatem B. Mariae V, nos. 2.4.5.6., apud Liturgy of the Hours, translation of the second typical Vatican edition, Ed. Paulus, São Paulo, 2000, vol. III, p. 1450.
(2) Among others, Saint Ignatius of Antioch (who was consecrated Bishop by Saint Peter), Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Clement of Alexandria, Saint Justin, etc.
(3) Saint Louis Mary Grignion de Montfort, Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, Ed. Vozes, Petrópolis, 46th edition, 2017, no. 5, pp. 20–21.
The post “Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, an amethyst oasis in which the Mother of God blossomed” appeared first on Gaudium Press Español.
