St.
Anne, Jesus’ grandmother,
is often overlooked at Christmas
By Denise Bossert
Do Catholics think about St. Anne during Advent? I don’t
know the answer to questions like that as I have only been Catholic a
few years. But I’m thinking about St. Anne this year. If you are
about to be a grandmother for the first time — like I am —
St. Anne just might be on your mind this December as well.
I’d never heard the names of Mary’s parents until I became
Catholic. As an Evangelical Protestant, we kept it simple. What do we
know about Mary’s parents from Sacred Scripture? Nothing. And so,
we left it at that. We assumed that the lineage of Mary had been lost
over the centuries. We didn’t realize that the Church had always
known the names of her mother and father. According to Church Tradition,
Mary’s mother was named Anne and her father was Joachim.
I find it interesting to think of Our Lord’s grandmother during
Advent. I simply cannot imagine what it was like for Anne to say goodbye
to her pregnant daughter and watch as the couple left Nazareth and headed
down the road for Bethlehem. Anne must have known that the birth would
come before she would see her daughter again. She must have treasured
those final days and hours, carefully preparing her daughter for childbirth
and the care of the umbilical cord, the technique for swaddling the newborn,
and the finer points of nursing.
She must have sent her daughter off with a mother’s blessing: may
your labor be quick and easy. She must have been overcome with longing,
when she placed her hand on her daughter’s swollen belly and felt
the Messiah kick.
She must have felt all these things — if she was like me. If she
was like every first time grandmother.
I wonder, too, what it was like after the census. When the Holy Family
realized they would not be returning to Nazareth any time soon, did
they send word to the grandparents that their grandson had been safely
born? Did they tell someone who was traveling back to Nazareth to inform
Anne and Joachim of the change in their plans? That they were going to
Egypt? That they couldn’t come back for a very long time?
Did the messenger tell the grandparents in Nazareth that God had another
plan for the little Holy Family?
And did Anne cry at the news? Did she long to see her daughter one more
time? Did she ache to hold the grandson who would save her people?
Sometime during this month, God willing, I will see my daughter again.
She might be resting in a hospital bed, watching her little boy as he
sleeps in the bassinet nearby. Maybe she will be holding him when I walk
through the door. Maybe she will be feeding him.
I pray that I will be a wise grandmother. A good grandmother. Precisely
the kind of grandmother this little boy will need. As we count these final
days of Advent, anticipating the arrival of our Infant King, I will be
thinking of the Holy Family, but I will also be contemplating the grandparents
back in Nazareth, who kissed their daughter goodbye over 2,000 years ago
— and gave their precious girl and her unborn child to a world that
needed them both desperately.
(Denise Bossert, raised as an evangelical Christian, joined the Catholic
Church in 2005 and today writes and speaks about her conversion experience.
Her column “Catholic by Grace” appears in Catholic papers
across the country. She has a M.A. in English studies from Southern Illinois
University.)
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