26 July 2024 - Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne
Sir 24, 1-2.5-7.12-16 26-30; or 1Jo 4, 7-16
Jo 11, 19-27 or Jo 12, 1-11
Homily
The Gospel is extremely discreet about the Virgin Mary. We know very few details of her life. It is as if the Evangelists wanted all our attention to be focused on what is essential about her, namely that she was the Mother of the Son of God. Luke, who says a little more than the others, opens his account of the Incarnation with this simple yet solemn formula: "The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a young girl given in marriage to a man named Joseph, from the house of David; this young girl's name was Mary."
So we know that Mary lived in the town of Nazareth in Galilee and that she must have been from the house of David, like Joseph, her betrothed. None of the Gospels tells us anything about her parents. In any case, she obviously had a mother and a father, to whom tradition has given the names Anne and Joachim. Many other details have been added in the apocryphal Gospels, in private revelations - true or false - and by spiritual writers of all kinds. Regardless of all these details, true or imagined, we are simply remembering Mary's father and mother today.
If we want to place Mary in the history of humanity, where, at the end of a long evolution that began on the day of the creation of man and woman in the image of God, she appears as the human being in whom openness and receptivity to the seed of divine life had reached its full development - so that she could be the Mother of God - it is clear that her parents must have been exceptional people. Not only did they have to be exceptional people, because it was through them that this extraordinary grace was transmitted to humanity, but they too had to be sanctified by the presence in their family of the one who would become the Mother of God.
Were they aware of the mystery they were encountering, and to what extent? Only God knows. It does not really matter! I have the impression that today's liturgical memory is a little different from the others. In the case of other saints, we celebrate either their martyrdom or the example of their life. In the case of Joachim and Anne, the meaning of this Memorial seems to me to be quite simply to say to them: "Thank you for having given us Mary!"