St. Anne Mother of the Blessed Virgin ~ Feast Day JULY 26

[Dawn Marie]

St. Anne
Mother of the Blessed Virgin

JULY 26 [Feast Day]

THE Hebrew word Anne signifies gracious. St. Joachim and St. Anne, the
parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, are justly honored in the church, and
their virtue is highly extolled by St. John Damascene. The emperor
Justinian I built a church at Constantinople in honor of St. Anne, about
the year 550. Codinus mentions another built by Justinian II, in 705. Her
body was brought from Palestine to Constantinople in 710, whence some
portions of her relics have been dispersed in the West. F. Cuper the
Bollandist has collected a great number of miracles wrought through her
intercession. God has been pleased by sensible effects to testify how much
he is honored by the devotion of the faithful to this saint, who was the
great model of virtue to all engaged in the married state, and charged with
the education of children.

It was a sublime dignity and a great honor for this saint to give to a lost
world the advocate of mercy and to be parent of the Mother of God. But it
was a far greater happiness to be, under God, the greatest instrument of
her virtue and to be spiritually her mother by a holy education in perfect
innocence and sanctity St. Anne, being herself a vessel of grace--not by
name only, but by the possession of that rich treasure--was chosen by God
to form his most beloved spouse to perfect virtue; and her pious care of
this illustrious daughter was the greatest means of her own sanctification
and her glory in the church of God to the end of ages. It is a lesson to
all parents whose principal duty is the holy education of their children.
By this they glorify their Creator, perpetuate his honor on earth to future
ages, and sanctify their own souls.

St. Paul says that it is by the education of their children that parents
are to be saved. Nor will he allow any one who has had children, ever to be
admitted to serve the altar, whose sons do not, by their holy conduct, give
proofs of a virtuous education. Nevertheless, we see parents solicitous
about the corporal qualifications of their children, and earnest to procure
them an establishment in the world; yet supinely careless in purchasing
them virtue, in which alone their true happiness consists. This reflection
drew tears from Crates, a heathen philosopher who desired to mount on the
highest place in his city, and cry out, with all his strength, "Citizens,
what is it you think of? You employ all your time in heaping up riches to
leave to your children; yet take no care to cultivate their souls with
virtue, as if an estate were more precious than themselves."

From "Butler's Lives of the Saints" on CD ROM (Harmony Media Inc.)

--
Sincerely in Christ,
Our Lady of the Rosary Library
"Pray and work for souls"
http://olrl.org

[Cathleen]

Happy Feast Day to all our mothers and grandmothers, especially all those named Anne / Ann / Anna or any other variation of the good saint's name. 

For my own dear Annie, my sunshine  :-)