NeoGothic St. Anne and Young Mary (SAU 29)

St. Anne—wife of St. Joachim; mother of Mary, the Blessed Virgin; grandmother of Jesus. + St. Anne teaching Mary to read the Scriptures from a book or scroll is, perhaps, *the* most familiar motif to contemporary viewers that features this saint. Statues of St. Anne and Young Mary grace innumerable Catholic churches, chapels, and parochial schools. In this instance, the scroll which St. Anne holds and points to contains a prophecy that pertains directly to Mary (Isaiah 7:14). In Latin, it reads: “Ecce virgo concipiet, et pariet filium, et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel” [Biblia Sacra Vulgata (VULGATE)]. That is: “Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” [Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA)]. + Nowhere mentioned in the canonical Gospels, St. Anne is named only in New Testament Apocrypha, specifically the Gospel of James. The Gospel of James purports to give a narrative history of the BVM’s family and early life from her miraculous conception to the birth of Jesus filling in the blanks before the Annunciation. Although rejected for inclusion in the canonical 27-book New Testament, the Gospel of James was an important source for Bl. James of Voragine’s chapter on the early life of Mary in his Golden Legend, the most important and most widely read book after the Bible during the Middle Ages. As such, the stories and the art based on them have come down to us today. The Belgian devotional image reproduced here dates to the late 19th century’s NeoGothic Revival, a movement in ecclesiastical art and architecture that drew on the Middle Ages for its inspiration. + St. Anne is patroness of unmarried women, housewives, women in labour or who want to be pregnant, grandmothers, grandparents, and educators. She is also a patron saint of horseback riders, cabinetmakers, and miners. + Feast: July 26 (with St. Joachim). In the U.S., National Grandparents Day is celebrated by law in September on the first Sunday after Labour Day; but, many religious people also informally honour their grandparents on July 26th. + Image Credit (SAU 29): Antique NeoGothic chromolithograph of St. Anne and Young Mary on a loose page probably from a prayer book originally published by the Socièté de St. Augustin, Bruges, Belgium, late 19th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.