Yesterday was a great Feast Day in our home, not only is it a Name Day for a family member but the great feast of the Grandmother of our Lord and mother of our Lady! As Dom Guranger says about St. Anne: "In the family circle the grandmother's feast day is the most touching of all, when her grandchildren surround her with reverential love, as we gather around thee to-day." It truly was a special day in our little home and one our kids will remember for some time. Here are a few quick takes of our special meal and the boys working on their crafts. Praying you all had a blessed day!

In reading the story of St. Anne from Dom Guranger's Liturgical Year it talks about Joachim being warned to come down from the mountain where he had been praying and meeting St. Anne at the Golden Gate.

Other sources say that the Messiah was expected to come through this gate. The lillies at the gate were indeed St. Anne and St. Joachim full of purity and desire to do God's will by providing him with offspring that they could give back to Him who did bless them so abundantly. Through these two saints was born Our Lady who gave us the Messiah through this Golden Gate. This is the story of the Lillies at the Golden Gate Macaroni Salad. The Macaroni's are in the shape of an arch (the Golden Gate in Jerusalem) and the Lilies (made by rolling cheese, a slice of carrot and green onion for the stems) represent St. Anne and St. Joachim.

Now that St. Anne was receiving the homage due to her exalted dignity, she made haste to show her recognition of this more solemn tribute of praise. In the years 1623, 1624, and 1625, in the village of Kerouane, near Auray, in Brittany, she appeared to Yves Nicholazic, and discovered to him an ancient statue buried in the field of Bocenno, which he tenanted. This discovery brought the people once more to the place where, a thousand years before, the inhabitants of ancient Armorica had honoured that statue. Innumerable graces obtained on the spot spread its fame far beyond the limits of the province, whose faith, worthy of past ages, had merited the favour of the grandmother of the Messias; and St. Anne d 'Auray was soon recokoned among the chief pilgrimages of the Christian world.

More fortunate than the wife of Elcana, who prefigured thee both in her trial and by her name, thou, O Anne, now singest the magnificent gifts of the Lord. Where is now the proud synagogue that despised thee? The descendants of the barren one are now without number; and all we, the brethren of Jesus, children, like Him, of thy daughter Mary, come joyfully, led by our Mother, to offer thee our praises. In the family circle the grandmother's feast day is the most touching of all, when her grandchildren surround her with reverential love, as we gather around thee to-day. Many, alas! know not these beautiful feasts, where the blessing of the earthly paradise seems to revive in all its freshness; but the mercy of our God has provided a a sweet compensation. He, the Most High God, willed to come so night to us as to be one of us in the flesh; to know the relations and mutual dependencies which are the law of our nature; the cords of Adam, with which He had determined to draw us and in which He first bound Himself. For in raising nature above itself, He did not eliminate it; He made grace take hold of it and lead it to heaven; so that, joined together on earth by their divine Author, nature and grace were to be united for all eternity. We, then, being brethren by grace of Him who is ever thy grandson by nature, are, by this loving disposition of Divine Wisdom, quite at home under thy roof; and to-day's feast, so dear to the hearts of Jesus and Mary, is our own family feast.

Smile then, dear mother, upon our chants and bless our prayers. To-day and always be propitious to the supplications which our land of sorrows sends up to thee their holy desires and the secret of their sorrows. Keep up, where they still exist, the traditions of the Christian home. Over how many families has the baneful breath of this age passed, blighting all that is serious in life, weakening faith, leaving nothing but languor, weariness, frivolity, if not even worse, in the place of the true and solid joys of our fathers. How truly might the Wise Man say at the present day: Who shall find a valiant woman? She alone by her influence could counteract all these evils' but on condition of recognizing wherein her true strength lies: in humble household words done with her own hands; in hidden, self-sacrificing devotedness; in watchings by night; in hourly foresight; working in wool and flax, and with the spindle; all those strong things which win for her the confidence and praise of her husband; authority over all, abundance in the house, blessings from the poor whom she has helped, honour from strangers, reverence from her children; and for herself in the fear of the Lord, nobility and dignity, beauty and strength, wisdom sweetness and content, and calm assurance at the latter day. (Cf. Prov. xxxi, 10-31)

O blessed Anne, rescue society, which is perishing for want of virtues like thine. The motherly kindnesses thou art ever more frequently bestowing upon us have increased the Church's confidence; deign to respond to the hopes she places in thee. Bless especially thy faithful Brittany; have pity on unhappy France, for which thou hast shown thy predilection, first, by so early confiding to it thy sacred body; later on, by choosing in it the spot whence thou wouldst manifest thyself to the world; and, again, quite recently entrusting to its sons the church and seminary dedicated to thy hour in Jerusalem. I thou who lovest the Franks, who designest still to look on fallen Gual as the kingdom of Mary, continue to show it that love which is its most cherished tradition. Mayest thou become known throughout the whole world. As for us, who have long known thy power and experienced thy goodness, let us ever seek in thee, I mother, our rest, security, strength in every trial; for he who leans on thee has nothing to fear on earth, and he who rests in thy arms is safely carried

The feast of St. Joachim, which the Church celebrates on the day following his blessed daughter's Assumption, will give us an occasion of completing the account of these trials and joys in which he shared. Warned from heaven to leave the desert, he met his spouse at the golden gate which leads to the temple on the east side. Not far from here, near the Probatica piscina, where the little white lambs were washed before being offered in sacrifice, now stands the restored basilica of St. Anne originally called St. Mary of the Nativity. Here, as in a peaceful paradise, the rod of Jesse produced that blessed branch which the prophet hailed as about to bear the flower that had blossomed from eternity in the bosom of the Father. It is true that Sepphoris, Anne's native city, and Nazareth, where Mary lived, dispute with the Holy City the honour which ancient and constant tradition assigns to Jerusalem. But our homage will not be misdirected if we offer it to-day to blessed Anne, in whom were wrought the prodigies, the very thought of which brings new joy to heaven, rage to Satan, and triumph to the world.

Anne was, as it were, the starting-point of redemption, the horizon scanned by the prophets, the first span of the heavens to be empurpled with rising fires of dawn; the blessed soil whose produce was so pure as to make the angels believe that Eden had been restored to us. But in the midst of the incomparable peace that surrounds her, let us hail her as the land of victory surpassing the most famous fields of battle; as the sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception, where our humiliated race took up the combat begun before the throne of God by the angelic hosts; where the serpent's head was c rushed, and Michael, now surpassed in glory, gladly handed over to his sweet Queen, at the first moment of her existence, the command of the Lord's armies.

What human lips, unless touched like the prophet's with a burning coal, could tell of the admiring wonder of the angelic Powers, when the Blessed Trinity, passing from the burning Seraphim to the lowest of the nine choirs, bade them turn their fiery glances and contemplage the flower of sanctity blossoming in the bosom of Anne? The Psalmist had said of the glorious City whose foundations were now hidden in her that was once barren: The Foundations thereof are in the holy mountians; (Ps. lxxxvi I) and the heavenly hierarchies crowning the slopes of the eternal hills beheld in her heights to them unknown and unattainable summits approaching so near to God, that He was even then preparing His throne in her. Like Moses at the sight of the burning bush on Horeb, they were seized with holy awe on recognizing the mountain of God in the midst of the desert of this world; and they understood that the affliction of Israel was soon to cease. Although shrouded by the cloud, Mary was already that blessed mountain whose base- i.e., the starting-point of her graces - was set far above the summits where the highest created sanctities are perfected in glory and love.

How justly is the mother named Anne, which signifies grace, she in whom for nine months were centered the complacencies of the Most High, the ecstasy of the angelic spirits, and the hope of all flesh! No doubt it was Mary, the daughter and not the mother, whose sweetness so powerfully attracted the heavens to our lowly earth. But the perfume first scents the vessel which contains it, and, even after it is removed, leaves it impregnated with its fragrance. Moreover, it is customary to prepare the vase itself with the greatest care; it must be all the purer, made of more precious material, and more richily adorned, according as the essence to be placed in it is rarer and more exquisite. Thus Magdalen enclosed her precious spikenard in alabaster. The Holy Spirit, the preparer of heavenly perfumes, would not be less careful than men. Now the task of blessed Anne was not limited, like that of a material vase, to containing passively the treasure of the world. She furnished the body of her who was to give flesh to the Son of God' she nourished her with her milk' she gave to her, who was inundated with floods of divine light, the first practical notions of life. In the education of her illustrious daughter, Anne played the part of a true mother: not only did she guide Mary's first steps, but she co-operated with the Holy Ghost in the education of her soul and preparation for her incomparable destiny; until, when the work had reached the highest development to which she could bring it, she, without a moment's hesitation or a though of self, offered her tenderly loved child to Him from whom she had received her.

Sic fingit tabernaculum Deo -'Thus she frames a tabernacle for God.' Such was the inscription around the figure of St. Anne instructing Mary, which formed the device of the ancient guild of joiners and cabinet-makers; for they, looking upon the making of tabernacles wherein God may dwell in our churches as their most choice work, had taken St. Anne for their patroness and model. Happy were those times when the simplicity of our fathers penetrated so deeply into the practical understanding of mysteries which their infatuated sons glory in ignoring. The valiant woman is praised in the Book of Proverbs for her spinning, weaving, sewing, embroidering, and household cares: naturally, then, those engaged in these occupations placed themselves under the protection of the spouse of Joachim. More than once, those suffering from the same trial which had inspired Anne's touching prayer beneath the sparrow's nest, experienced the power of her intercession in obtaining for others, as well as for herself, the blessing of the Lord God.

The East anticipated the West in public cultus of the grandmother of the Messias. Towards the middle of the sixth century a church  was dedicated to her in Constantinople. The Typicon of St. Sabbas makes a liturgical commemoration of her three times in the year: on September 9, together with her spouse St. Joachim, the day after the birthday of their glorious daughter; on December 9, whereon the Greeks, a day later than the Latins, keep the feast of our Lady's Immaculate Conception, under a title which more directly expresses St. Anne's share in the mystery; and lastly, July 25, not being occupied by the feast of St. James, which was kept on April 30, is called the Dormitio or precious death of St. Anne, mother of the most holy Mother of God: the very same expression which the Roman martyrology adopted later.

Although Rome, with her usual reserve, did not until much later authorize the introduction into the Latin Churches of a liturgical feast of St. Anne, she nevertheless encouraged the piety of the faithful in this direction. So early as the time of Leo III (795-816) and by that illustrious Pontiff's express command, the history of Anne and Joachim was represented on the sacred ornaments of the noblest basilicas in the Eternal City (Lib. pontif. in Leon. III). The Order of Carmel, so devout to St. Anne, powerfully contributed, by its fortunate migration into our countries, to the growing increase of her cultus. Moreover, this development was the natural outcome of the progress of devotion among the people to the Mother of God. The close relation between the two cults is noticed in a concession, whereby the 1381 Urban Vi satisfied the desires of the faithful in England by authorizing for that kingdom a feast of the blessed Anne. The Church of Apt in Provence has been already a century in the possession of the feast; a fact due to the honour bestowed on that Church of having received, almost together with the faith, the saint's holy body. in the first age of Christianity.

For those of you following with us on the Liturgical Year Bulletin Board, the new July 2012 pieces are up!

July is yet another busy month!

July 1st    Feast of the Most Precious Blood

July 2nd The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin

July 7th SS. Cyril and Methodius, Patrons of the Slavs

July 16th    Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

July 19th    St. Vincent De Paul

July 22nd   St. Mary Magdalen

July 25th   St. James the Apostle

July 26th  St. Anne Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we will have a special feast day post (or two) for this special saint!

July 31st    St. Ignatius