Patrick Comerford
We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and the week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII). The Church Calendar today celebrates Anne and Joachim, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with a lesser festival (26 July).
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 13: 18-23 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 18 ‘Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23 But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.’
This morning’s reflection:
Today is the Feast of Saint Anne (26 July). It is a day celebrated in the Church of England in the calendar of Common Worship as ‘Anne and Joachim, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary,’ and in the US in the calendar of the Episcopal Church as ‘The Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary,’ without naming them.
It is a feast that is not marked in the Calendar of the Church of Ireland. But, in his book, Dedicated to Saint Anne (2008), Duncan Scarlett counted 29 churches and chapels within the Church of Ireland that are dedicated to Saint Anne, including Saint Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, Saint Anne’s Church on Dawson Street, Dublin, Saint Anne’s Church, Cappoquin, Co Waterford, Saint Anne’s Church, Shandon, Cork, and Saint Anne’s Church, Killanne, Co Wexford.
There is also a Saint Anne’s Chapel in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick, where the former Chapel of Saint Anne and the Sexton Chapel were amalgamated to form the consistorial court.
There is the old joke beloved by theology students that refers to Saint Anne as ‘Holy Annie, God’s Grannie.’
But, even as a child, I could be amused by the fact that the two parish churches in Cappoquin – Saint Anne’s (Church of Ireland) and Saint Mary’s (Roman Catholic) – were named after mother and daughter and stood side-by-side on the one triangle of land at the junction of Main Street and Mill Street, on sites donated by donated by the Keane family of Cappoquin House, with Saint Anne’s on a slightly higher site.
In Porto some years ago, I heard how Saint Anne was one of two saints, alongside Saint Esther, who was popular among the conversos or anusim, the crypto-Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity in Portugal and Spain during the Inquisition.
Saint Anne was a popular figure among the conversos because, it was said, she had died before the birth of Christ and so had never converted to Christianity yet was revered as a saint. When conversos were forced to place a shrine outside their homes as a sign of their commitment to Christianity, Saint Anne was often the saint of choice.
A similar tradition about Saint Anne has been recorded among the descendants of conversos or anusim from Spain and Portugal who settled in Naples, Sicily and other parts of Italy.
Saint Esterica, who became popular in converso families from Portugal and Spain, was modelled on Queen Esther of Persia. She hid her Judaism when she married King Ahasuerus, and she is said to have been a vegetarian to avoid eating non-kosher meat. She seemed to be fully assimilated, yet she never forgot who she truly was.
When Ferdinand and Isabella established the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, many Jews converted to Catholicism outwardly. Inwardly, they kept practicing Judaism in secret, becoming anusim, conversos, or crypto-Jews.
Queen Esther was an inspiration for the anusim because she remembered her true but hidden Jewish identity while integrating into wider society.
Although Queen Esther was never canonised, the anusim transformed her into Saint Esther or Santa Esterica, and they continued to celebrate Purim by reinventing it as ‘the Festival of Saint Esther.’
When the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, many Jews and conversos escaped to Portugal, taking their traditions with them. But a similar expulsion order was issued in Portugal in 1497. Many Spanish and Portuguese anusim then brought the traditions of Saint Esther to Mexico and other parts of the New World.
The Festival of Saint Esther included the three-day Fast of Queen Esther and the Feast of Saint Esther, when women fasted and then lit devotional candles in honour of Saint Esther, and when mothers and daughters cooked a banquet together, passing on family recipes that transmitted the traditions of kashrut or kosher food.
In crypto-Jewish homes, Queen Esther was represented in icons, statues and devotional paintings of Saint Esther, depicted wearing a crown adorned with myrtle and holding a sceptre decorated with a pomegranate, a tradition that continues to this day among some families in New Mexico.
Of course, as Duncan Scarlett pointed out, Saint Anne and Saint Joachim are totally fictitious saints too, constructed by the early Church to fill a perceived gap in the Biblical narrative of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Their names come only from New Testament apocrypha, and writings such as the Gospel of James, written sometime between 150 and 200. The story bears a similarity to that of the birth of Samuel, whose mother Hannah – etymologically the same name as Anne – had also been childless.
Today’s Prayers (Friday 26 July 2024, Saint Joachim and Saint Anne):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Someone called my name – Mary Magdalene Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Revd Cathrine Ngangira, Priest-in-Charge, Benefice of Boughton-under-Blean with Durnkirk, Graveney with Goodnestone and Hernhill.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 26 July 2024) invites us to pray:
Let us pray for pastors, councillors and all involved in bereavement ministry.
The Collect:
Lord God of Israel,
who bestowed such grace on Anne and Joachim
that their daughter Mary grew up obedient to your word
and made ready to be the mother of your Son:
help us to commit ourselves in all things to your keeping
and grant us the salvation you promised to your people;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Post Communion Prayer:
Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name,
your servants Anne and Joachim revealed your goodness
in a life of tranquillity and service:
grant that we who have gathered in faith around this table
may like them know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge
and be filled with all your fullness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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