Feast of St Anne - the hidden life and Christian perfection

The Kingdom of God is built up in silence; it is, before all, interior, and in the depth of the soul: Vita vestra est absondita cum Christo in Deo. Undoubtedly, grace possess a virtue which nearly always overflows in works of charity, but the principle of its power is entirely within. It is in the depth of the heart that the true intensity of the Christian life lies, it is there that God dwells, adored and served by faith, recollection, humility, obediance, simplicity, labour and love. Our outward activity has no stability nor supernatural fruitfulness save in so far as it is linked to this interior life. We shall truly only bear fruit outwardly according to the measure of the supernatural life. Nothing favours this intense union of the soul with God like the hidden life. And this is why souls living the inner life, and enlightened from on high, love to contemplate the life of Jesus of Nazareth. They find in it a special charm and, moreover, abundant graces of holiness.

Abbot Columba Marmion reflection on the Feast Of St Anne taken from 'Words of life - on the margin of the Missal'.

Today is the Feast of St Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin and also in Church's tradition Saturday is Our Lady's Day with Masses offered in her honour in Traditional Roman rite. Therefore I will offer on this day the short meditation on the Immaculate conception of Our Lady in her own words said once in the vision to St Bridget.The Angel announcing the birth of the Virgin to St Anne and St Joachim is represented in picture above the text

The Immaculate Conception - The Blessed Virgin speaks.

And it is a truth that I was conceived without original sin, and not in sin; because, as my Son and I never sinned, so no marriage was more holy than that from which I was born (Lib 6, ch 49). A golden hour was my conception, for then began the principle of the salvation of all, and darkness hastened to light. God wished to do in His work something singular and hidden from the world, as he did in the dry rod blooming. But know that my conception was not known to all, because God wished that as the natural law and the voluntary election of good and bad preceded the written law, and the written law followed, restraining all inordinate nations, so it pleased God, that His friends should piously doubt of my conception, and that each should show zeal till the truth became clear in its preordained time (Lib. 6, ch.55).

Prof Plinio Correa de Oliveira (Tradition in Action) provides interesting insight on how Tradition of the Church and Carmelite Tradition connect with St Anne, her family and her life. To read more, please follow LINK

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Feast of St Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin

Beautiful, refreshing and encouraging meditation for every Catholic mother. St Anne, pray for us!

Spiritual Bouquet: He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me... And I will love him and manifest Myself to him (St. John 14:21)

Saint Anne, chosen by God to be the mother of Mary, His own Blessed Mother on earth, was the spouse of Saint Joachim. Ancestor of the Eternal King and High Priest, Joachim was of the royal house of David, while Anne was of Levitical descent. Their lives were wholly occupied with prayer and good works. One thing only was wanting to their union — they were childless, and this was held as a bitter misfortune among the Jews. At length, when Anne was well advanced in age, Mary was born, the fruit rather of grace than of nature, and the child more of God than of man. With the birth of Mary the holy matron began a new life; she watched Her every movement with reverent tenderness, and, aware of the little one’s destiny, felt herself hourly sanctified by the presence of her Immaculate Child. But she had vowed her daughter to God; to God the child Mary had already consecrated Herself, and to Him Anne gave Her back. Mary was three years old when Anne and Joachim led Her to the Temple steps, saw Her pass by Herself into the inner sanctuary, and then saw Her no more. Thus was Anne left childless in her old age, and deprived of her purest earthly joy. The holiest parents on earth could not, in the plan of God, raise this Child as was needed: Mary had to suffer from Her earliest years. Saint Anne and Saint Joachim humbly adored the Divine Will, and continued to watch and pray, until God called them to unending rest.

France and Canada possess the principal sanctuaries of Saint Anne: in France, at Apt in Provence, and at Auray in Britanny; in Canada at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in the Province of Quebec. At Apt the discovery in 792 of Saint Anne’s relics, brought by Lazarus and his two sisters to France, was wholly miraculous, authenticated by the presence of Charlemagne during the discovery, and the signature of Pope Adrian I on the written account of the facts.

Reflection: Saint Anne is glorious among the Saints, not only as the mother of Mary, but because she gave Mary to God. Learn from her to reverence a religious vocation as the highest privilege, and to sacrifice every natural bond, however holy, at the call of God.

Sources: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints, and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).

Text after www.magnificat.ca

Beautiful wood carved 'Head of St Anne' - of Tilman workshop Read whole post......