The Faith Givers!

Saturday, July 25, 2025

Feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne

Sir 44:1, 10-15; Mt 13:16-17

The feast of Saints Joachim and Anne reminds us of the importance of and our responsibility to transmit Christian faith to younger generations. 

The little information we have about Saints Joachim and Anne comes from the apocryphal Gospel of James. According to that account, Joachim and Anne were childless but elderly, thus enduring the pain of ridicule and mockery in the Jewish culture that they did not find favor with God. But the devout couple do not give up and move God through their incessant prayers. Joachim withdrew to the desert to fast and pray, while Anne grieved deeply. In response, an angel appeared to them, announcing that they would conceive a child.

But we are left to wonder why such a God-fearing couple should wait so long for the blessing of a child. Here, I am reminded of the words of the first Indian Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore: ‘Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of humankind.’ As such, the lives of Joachim and Anne help us realize that a child is a gift of God. Hence, we cannot reduce the birth of a child to a mere biological act or a natural process that can be explained apart from the involvement of God. The story of Joachim and Anne proves that God is personally involved in the creation of each and every individual life. And there is something more to the child that was born to Joachim and Anne, thus making the delayed gift the best of all. The elderly couple gave birth to a child who was not only protected from the stain of original sin but also became the Mother of God. The lives of Joachim and Anne are a testament to the fact that God delays for a reason that we do not know of, and when it is answered, it is usually the best one for sure. 

By becoming the parents of the Mother of God and also the grandparents of Jesus, the influence of Saints Joachim and Anne over the Holy Family is quite intergenerational. I also see that the lessons that we pick up from their lives are multi-layered, with each becoming unique and special in its own way. 

As a Couple: Saints Joachim and Anne achieved what we call today ‘couple goals.’ We must note that when Joachim took upon himself the pain of childlessness, which in patriarchal societies of the past was solely the pain of women, he proved to be his wife’s real better half. Joachim’s ascetic life in the desert and the ceaseless prayers of Anne demonstrate how the elderly couple bore each other in their difficult times. In my view, both Joachim and Anne rewrote the definition of marital fidelity by not only being truthful to each other but also being truthful to each other’s cause. They owned each other and each other’s needs. They both won as a couple. 

As Parents: We often hail Mary as a symbol of faith, prayer, and humility. It is no exaggeration to state that Mary would have inherited such qualities from her selfless father and prayerful mother. If Mary was the fruit, the tree was the family of Joachim and Anne. We read in Luke’s Gospel that ‘Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart’ (Lk 2:19). ‘Can we not safely assume that Mary’s habit of discernment came from her holy parents, who kept contemplating God’s will for them as they were fervently praying for a child, though well-advanced in years? The godly parents passed on faith to their saintly child, who preserved it for the rest of her life. They both won as parents. 

As Grandparents: The lives of Saints Joachim and Anne became the seedbed for the Son of God, who was brought up in faith by Mary. If there was one sentence that I heard repeated quite often when I was in the USA, it was, ‘Don’t forget what your grandma taught you.’ It is assumed by the believing community that the basics of the Catholic faith were always and better transmitted by the grandparents. Research also indicates that grandparental involvement in faith education results in better emotional adjustment and fewer behavioural problems in Catholic adolescents. This is why Pope Francis tirelessly repeated that ‘A family that fails to respect and cherish its grandparents, who are its living memory, is already in decline, whereas a family that remembers has a future.’ Also, addressing directly the grandparents, the former Pontiff reiterated, ‘There is no retirement age from the work of proclaiming the Gospel and handing down traditions to your grandchildren.’ In leaving behind a spiritual patrimony for Jesus through Mary, Joachim and Anne won as grandparents too. 

The holy lives of Saints Joachim and Anne underline that the most important wealth we can transmit to younger generations is the gift of God, which our contemporary times need most. 

Let us pray that we may take upon ourselves the beautiful responsibility of transmitting the faith to younger generations through our exemplary lives like Saints Joachim and Anne.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar