Saint
Anne
According to popular tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary and grandmother of the child Jesus. We have no historical evidence, however, of any elements of her life, including even her name. Any stories about Mary's mother come to us through legend and tradition.
We
get the oldest story from a document called the Gospel of James, though
in no way should this document be trusted to be factual, historical, or
the Word of God. The legend told in this document says that after years
of childlessness, an angel appeared to tell Anne and Joachim that they
would have a child. Anne promised to dedicate this child to God (much
the way that Samuel was dedicated by his mother Hannah -- Anne -- in 1
Kings). Adapted from the Catholic
Online Saints Index.
The
people in the Beira region call her Our Lady Santa Ana as if she were
the Virgin Mary. According
to tradition, her husband was Saint Joaquin, but practically nobody
remembers him. She is shown
as an older woman seated on an armchair with her daughter sitting on one
knee and her grandchild on her daughter's lap.
The grandmother holds the two with strong arms.
In other images the daughter is sitting on one knee and the
grandson on the other. In
more recent images the mother is sitting in the armchair and learning to
read on the mother's fingers. No
matter what the iconography of Santa Ana, it is always a very suggestive
representation of the power of the maternal grandmother:
the grandmother protects and guides the daughter and the grandson
at the same time.
The
popular cult and iconography of Santa Ana contradict the official
genealogy of Jesus as given in the Gospels.
This is a contradiction on two levels: the popular tradition
follows a matrilineal descent; while in the Biblical texts it is
patrilineal. During the
Portuguese Renaissance there were altar pieces called "trees of
Jesus" (the genealogy of Christ), in which the ascendance of Mary
was displayed in the form of a tree: only men, not one woman among his
ancestors! This
iconographic model is very common in the churches of the Jesuits, who,
according to some, were the inventors.
But it is false. According
to the Gospels, the ancestor of David is Joseph, who was not the father
of Jesus, and the Gospels make no mention of Mary being of the lineage
of David. According to the
prophecies, the Messiah would be of the lineage of David.
The transmission of kinship in the Jewish popular tradition is
matrilineal (you inherit the Jewish quality or nationality on your
mother's side; this is a cultural trait inherited from the Canaanites),
while the Bible, whenever it refers to the kinship of someone, only
mentions the father, or the father and the paternal grandfather.
The Gospels reproduce the patrilinear system; in other words, the
lineage of Joseph, contradicting them about Joseph's non-paternity.
It is as if the patriarchal values of the writers had imposed
themselves on the doctrine they were disseminating.
The Portuguese who adopted Santa Ana and represent her in this
way are right, and are exempt from this theological puzzle.
The
cult of Santa Ana has other dimensions.
Santa Ana can be identified with an Aramaic divinity called Anat
or Ana who the Phoenicians worshipped as a consort for their god Bel of
Tyre (old form of Baal). In
the Jewish popular tradition, Ant is a mother goddess, the consort of El
or Bethel, supreme god of Chaldeia, and who often appears in the myths
and documents of Ugarit. The
Jews in the military colony of Elephantine also worshipped her.
They called her "Queen of Heaven", and she had a chapel
inside the shrine to Yaho (Yaveh).
The
Portuguese Santa Ana can be identified in certain cases with Anat-Queen
of Heaven and goddess of agriculture.
Frei Agostinho cites the case of Santa Ana, from Paredes do
Cravo: "On the altar of the parish church of Pinheiro we can see an
image of Santa Ana, mother of the best daughter, grandmother of the best
grandson. When great
drought, excessive rain, or a plague of insects afflicts the inhabitants
of this parish, they come to this matronly saint, who has so much
authority with her powerful daughter and with her omnipotent son.
They carry her in procession to the home of her most holy
daughter, Our Lady of Grace, and there are cases of marvelous happenings,
in which the heavens are moved to obtain everything these people need."
It is not clear who is responsible for these marvelous blessings,
the mother or the grandmother.
Links to Saint Anne
- Byzantines.net - Account of the Dormition of the Glorious St. Anne, mother of the Theotokos. Includes tropar, kontakion, and prayers.
- Catholic Encyclopedia - St. Anne, according to apocryphal literature, the mother of Mary.
- Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia - Hagiography of St. Anna, mother of the Theotokos.
- Lives of Saints - St. Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin. From the book "Lives of Saints", published by John J. Crawley.
- Patron Saints Index - Profile of St. Anne. Illustrated.
- Peter Grace - The life of St. Ann, and devotion to her.
- Religion and the Bretons - About devotion to St. Anne, the patron saint of Brittany.
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