St. Joachim

Today the Church honours St. Joachim, father of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James, St. Joachim came to make an offering at the Temple and was taunted for being without seed. In grief he retired to the desert where he remained in fasting and prayer for forty days, hoping the Lord would give him a child. Meanwhile his wife St. Anne was mourning the loss of her husband and her childlessness, when her maid-servant Judith reminded her the day of the Lord was approaching, prompting St. Anne to go into the garden to pray.

Simultaneously, an angel appeared to Sts. Joachim and Anne announcing their prayers were heard, prompting St. Joachim to instruct his shepherds to bring 10 lambs, 12 calves and 100 goats to offer in thanksgiving. As he lead the flock homeward, St. Anne awaited him at the city gate and when she saw him in the distance, ran out to embrace him. St. Joachim took his offerings to the Temple, where God gave him a sign he was without sin, and he returned home justified.

After Our Lady was born, her parents dedicated her to God and at the age of three she was taken to the Temple, where they arranged for virgins to stand with lamps to see if her heart would be captivated by the Temple. When Our Lady entered the Temple and did not turn back, her parents went down praising God.

In the fourth century St. Helena built a Church on the site of Sts Joachim and Anne's home but by the close of the ninth century it had become a Muslim school. In 1889 their tomb was discovered in Jerusalem. Today's feast was first celebrated in the Greek Churches, the Latin Churches having celebrated it at different times on March 20, September 19, December 9 or the Sunday after the Assumption.

Laudemus virum gloriosum in generatione sua,

quia benedictionem omnium gentium dedit illi Dominus,

et testamentum suum confirmavit super caput ejus