Saint Anne

In the East, she is celebrated on the Sunday before the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, September 8th. 

Her day of the week is Monday & her primary color is white, although many associate yellow and green with her as well. 

Anne (in Hebrew, Hannah, meaning grace: also spelled Ann, Anne, Anna) is the traditional name of the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the Patroness of Brittany, the Patroness of Canada, of cabinet makers, grandmothers, housekeepers, housewives, mothers, those who wish to conceive, and women in labor. She is also the patroness of miners: Christ being compared to gold, Mary to silver.

Saint Anne is venerated famously in Germany. She is particularly well known for granting pregnancy & children. She is said to send white feathers as a sign to those who have prayed to her for conception. Saint Anne may also be petitioned for special requests as well as help for the deaf & blind. She is known to assist with bringing back lost love or even finding self-love.

In many traditions (especially where synchronized) Saint Anne is the spirit of Love, Money, Luck & Happiness. She is said to represent all the good things in life & loves to shower these gifts upon her children. She is well known for uniting women with their BEST option for a husband & may also be petitioned for healing from traumatic births or miscarriages. 

Burn a candle for Saint Anne if you wish for the women in your life to have prosperity, love, peace of mind and respect. In some Spiritualist traditions, she is known as the spiritual wife of Saint Michael. In many Vodou households and temples icons of Saint Anne will be found next to the icons of Saint Michael. In Dominican Culture she is known as the Spiritual Queen of Love.  

To petition Saint Anne in a classic folk tradition: 

Light a white candle & set a plate for her at your dinner table. Be sure to offer her a fresh glass of water along with her portion of food. Place a paper petition with your request under her plate.  

Saint Anne is known to be a gentle Spirit. She is the mother of the Virgin Mary and assists with all things related to motherhood, childbirth, and family life. She is known to be very easy to petition, close to humans, and approachable in her abilities to intercede. In hoodoo she is considered an extremely "cool" saint, meaning that her energy is gentle, persuasive, healing, and rarely aggressive. 

As the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Holy Saint Anne was the mother and the grandmother of Jesus. She is depicted as a mature woman of wisdom, strength, and virtue. She is contemplative, serious, holy, and profound. Saint Anne is often shown embracing her daughter Mary or watching over the Holy Mother Mary, who in turn is casting adoring eyes on Baby Jesus.

There are many miracles attributed to Saint Anne. Devotees of St. Anne are known to make a long pilgrimage to the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, located along the Saint Lawrence River outside of Quebec. This Basilica is the site of many miraculous physical healings. Discarded crutches and wheelchairs are common at this site.

Of course, Saint Anne is also known to grant profound Spiritual help and particularly to bless women who come before her. Profound favors are attributed to her including love, marriage, and children. Traditionally, she has great influence over families, pregnancies, children, and grandchildren.

On Feast days, devotees are known to prepare garlands of flowers to be draped over the altars and statues of Saint Anne, as well as many plates containing all sorts of delicacies. The preparations are at times very elaborate, and the blessings which follow are said to be remarkable. Many who attend or participate in such occasions report incredible blessings in the weeks that follow.

But don’t let these displays of grandeur dissuade you! She is an approachable Saint who is also said not to ask for much. A simple white candle, a glass of freshwater and a prayer from the heart can go a long way! 

Prayers to Saint Anne ~ 

“Good St. Anne, you were especially favored by God to be the mother of the holiest Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Savior. By your power with your most pure daughter and with her divine Son, kindly obtain for us the grace and the favor we now seek. Please secure for us also forgiveness of our past sins, the strength to perform faithfully our daily duties and the help we need to persevere in the love of Jesus and Mary.”

“With my heart full of the most sincere veneration, I prostrate myself before thee, O glorious Saint Anne. Thou art that creature of privilege and predilection, who by thy extraordinary virtues and holiness didst merit from God the high favor of giving life to her who is the Treasury of all graces, blessed among women, the Mother of the Word Incarnate, the holiest Virgin Mary. By virtue of so lofty a privilege, do thou deign, O most compassionate Saint, to receive me into the number of thy true clients, for so I profess myself and so I desire to remain throughout my entire life.”

HISTORY 

The cult of St Anne goes back to the early centuries of Christianity and was intimately connected with the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The public cult of St Anne is thought to have been introduced into the Western Church in the 8th century. In 1378, the feast of St Anne was celebrated for the first time on July 26 in England and was soon observed throughout the Western Church. 

Many feasts of Mary were also feasts in honor of St Anne, her mother. This is true of the feasts for Mary’s conception and for her birth. After all, the Immaculate Conception of Mary happened in the womb of Anne. The cult of St Anne was widespread in the East before it spread to the Western Church. A church was dedicated to St Anne in Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, around the year 550. Another existed in Jerusalem at the same time and is especially venerable because it was built over the crypt that was the house of Joachim and Anne, the house where Mary was born.

Devotion to St Anne spread rapidly everywhere in the West. Churches in her honor were erected beginning in the 13th century. The most famous sites for Saint Anne are those of Duren in Germany, from 1501; Saint Anne d’Auray, in Brittany, France, from 1623; and Saint Anne de Beaupre in Canada, from 1670. Her veneration spread to the French Dominicans in 1887.

The devotion to St Anne was brought to the United States and Canada by the first missionaries of North America, who came from France at a time when St Anne was becoming famous through her Shrine in Brittany. Today, St Anne has hundreds of churches and shrines dedicated to her in the United States and Canada, where she is still one of the most popular and beloved saints.

What little we know about Saint Anne comes from the apocryphal Gospel of James. In the Eastern traditions, there are two other ancient scriptures which speak of St. Anne & her life, however, they have not been accepted in the Western Cannon. 

According to tradition, Saint Anne was born in Bethlehem and married Joachim of Nazareth. They were both descendants of King David. Joachim is described as “a rich and devout man,” who regularly gave to the poor. On a feast day, he went to the temple to contribute a double offering. However, he has turned away because Anne was barren. Childlessness was interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure and the temple priest rejected Joachim’s sacrifice. In these times, there was no greater misfortune for a Jewish person than to be childless. Joachim went directly to the mountains (also interpreted as the desert) to fast and pray for forty days and forty nights.

When her husband did not return home, it is said that Anne learned of the events and the reason for his departure. In turn, she remembered the faith of her ancestors, and with renewed courage prayed: 

“God of my fathers, bless me: Hear my prayer, as You blessed the womb of Sarah, and gave her a son Isaac!” (PJ 2:4). 

It is said that an Angel appeared to Anne. She was informed that the Lord heard her prayer & that she would conceive and bear an offspring which would be spoken of in all the world. In an outpouring of faith, she immediately consecrated her future offspring. An angel also appeared to Joachim, saying: “God has heard your prayer. Go on your way, for your wife will conceive”. Joachim offered a thanksgiving sacrifice of ten she-lambs without spot or blemish for the Lord, twelve tender calves for the priests and elders, and a hundred goats for all the people. He then returned to Jerusalem and embraced Anne at the city gate. 

There was an ancient belief that a child born of an elderly mother who had given up hope of having offspring was destined for great things. Parallels occur in the Old Testament in the cases of Sarah, mother of Isaac and Hannah, mother of Samuel; and in the New Testament in the case of Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist.

Tradition further narrates that in gratitude to God for the blessing of a daughter, Joachim and Anne vowed to consecrate Mary to God in the Temple as soon as her age permitted it. And they did. Mary was scarcely three years old when, accompanied by her parents, she first set foot in the Temple. Here the noble child was admitted to the elect group of virgins consecrated to God. Mary became an orphan when still in the Temple. Yet her faith and hope made her see the death of her parents as the passage from exile to homeland, from earth to heaven. 

The Greeks keep a collective feast of St. Joachim and St. Anne on the 9th of September. In the Latin Church St. Anne was not venerated (except in the south of France) before the thirteenth century. Her picture, painted in the eighth century, which was is now found in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome, is of Byzantine origin. 

The alleged relics of St. Anne were brought from the Holy Land to Constantinople in 710 and were still kept there in the church of St. Sophia in 1333. The church of Apt in southern France reports that the body of St. Anne was brought to Apt by St. Lazarus. The body was then hidden by St. Auspicius and found again during the reign of Charlemagne on the Monday after Easter. These relics were brought to a magnificent chapel in 1664 (feast, 4 May). The head of St. Anne was kept at Mainz up to 1510 when it was stolen and brought to Düren in Rheinland. 

~Blessings~