What comes across consistently in all the documents, though, is that Anne was greatly distressed because she was childless, as was her husband Joachim. Interestingly, the Koran has a great deal to say about Saint Anne, as it does about Our Lady herself.
Because they are not canonical gospels, that is, part of Sacred Scripture and thus guaranteed total reliability, we cannot assert the claims of the several apocryphal works with any degree of certitude. The only data about Anne (actually, “Hannah” in Hebrew) comes from various apocryphal sources like the Proto-Evangelium of James or the Pseudo-Matthew or the Gospel of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We do know that a church was erected in her honor in Jerusalem by the sixth century and that an ancient Byzantine icon portrays Anne enveloping her daughter Mary with her mantle, while Our Lady holds the Christ-Child in her lap. Let me begin by stating what is undoubtedly known to any devotée of Saint Anne, namely, that we have absolutely no information about her in Sacred Scripture.
I would like to reflect a bit on Christ’s grandmother, trusting that His grandfather won’t feel any more neglected than when we consider Jesus’ holy Mother, without mention of His holy foster father, Saint Joseph.
If today were not a Sunday, we would be observing the liturgical memorial of Saints Anne and Joachim, the grandparents of Our Lord.
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