Saint Anne, Feast Day 26 July
St Anne is the patron of mothers, grandparents, pregnant women, children, unmarried people, teachers, child care providers, seamstresses, and lacemakers to name a few.
“The Hebrew word Anne signifies gracious. St Joachim and St Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, are justly honoured in the church, and their virtue is highly extolled by St John Damascen (…)
(…) God has been pleased by sensible effects to testify how much he is honoured 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 honour 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 honour 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.”
Extract & Image From
The Lives of The Fathers, Martyrs and Other principal Saints
By the Rev. Alban Butler (University Press, Edinburgh, 1936)
Volume 111, page 839