PAGKILALA/TRIBUTE: ST. ANNE, MOTHER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY: On Tradition, Family and the Church

Rev. Msgr. Andres Santos Valera, H.P.
San Jose, Hagonoy, Bulacan
Miyembro, Kapatiran ng 
Kapariang Taga-Hagonoy, Inc.

   Today we celebrate the feasts of Sts. Joachim and Anne. The feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne are especially celebrated in the Eastern Church. It is then celebrated on September 8 together with the birth of Mary. It was then that the Emperor Justinian built a church in honor of St. Anne in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul, Turkey) that the feast was celebrated in the West. You will not find the names of the parents of Mary in Sacred Scripture, they are rather in what we call extra-biblical sources which we call the apocryphal books. It is in the Protoevangelium of St. James.

   Another feast also comes from the reference of that book, that is the memorial of the presentation of Mary in the temple. These teaches us something about our faith and about the teaching of the Church, that we should not get carried away when people say it is not in the Bible. Why? Because not all our teaching are really in the Bible. There are two sources of our teaching: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and Magisterium. Thus this feast is based on Tradition and Magisterium which the Bible really affirms because Scripture says in the Gospel of John that not everything is written in Sacred Scripture (cf. Jn. 20). And hence we celebrate the feast which came from such apocryphal books like the Protoevangelium of St. James.

   The feast reminds us that there is an importance in family and in the values taught in the family. In science books there are always talks on nature vs. nurture. Nature is something you inherit, nurture is something you are taught as you are taken cared of. Yet I believe these two are gravely important because not only nature but nurture is as well celebrated on the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne. The Office of the Readings present St. John Damascene, a renowned Doctor of the Church who have presented the Sts. Anne and Joachim teaching the Blessed Virgin Mary. In a sense, this is also informative, but you know it is not only the parents are the teachers. I know a family who has taught everything good to their child, only to find out that the child was doing something wrong. The father was asking, Where did we go wrong? I said to them, You are not the only teacher, there are others. There are the friends of your son and the environment that he has.

A painting from the author:
St. Anne Conceiving the Blessed Virgin Mary
A work of Flemish painter Jehan Bellegambe the Elder
 (1470 - 1536)

   It is then important to know that the first teachers should come from the family, which is why Sts. Joachim and Anne are given importance today. This is also the time to pray for the elderly. As we know in our diocese, Sts. Joachim and Anne are considered as the Patron Saints of Senior Citizens. It is in present society that we should give them more and more importance. Once I went to Trinoma, it was on a Tuesday and that was the day when the Quezon City government gave tickets to senior citizens. I was on the movie house and it smelled efficacent oil because when you get old you would put efficacent oil on your body. When I was there I said to myself, there would be a time I would smell like this efficacent oil. It was very near for me. So it in this sense that we should understand how old people are. In a sense, we should give them love and understanding. This is why we celebrate the feast today, to give importance to the elderly in our community.

   People would tell us that, maraming matatanda ang tinatawag na matatanda dahil marami silang natatandaan. Hindi iyong nakalilimot sila. We should learn from them what they have experienced. In the lessons I give on the liturgy, specifically on the Sacrament of Penance, in the Pontificale Romanum Germanicum, that when penitents come back to the Church, its not a young deacon that calls them but an old deacon. He calls people back to the Church. My students then asked why. And I said that when you are old, you influence people more and they are more patient.

   As we celebrate the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne, let us thank the Lord for giving us our ancestors. We thank God for our grandparents. We thank the Lord that like them, we too may be like the Lord. Like Anne, whose name means “grace” we may also be an instrument of grace for others. Amen.

Photo Courtesy of : John Andrew C. Libao (National Shrine and Parish of St. Anne)