| St Anne herself had to
endure an excruciating trial. She experienced pain and
distress. Her heart was deeply wounded.
For, after twenty years of marriage,
she had not yet given birth to a child. Written and oral tradition
show Anne and Joachim dying of grief for not being able to transmit
life.
It is hard for us to understand the
profound humiliation implied in such infertility.
They, who wished to have children, were utterly distressed and ashamed
at being
apparently rejected by God. In the eyes of people around them they
were stigmatized
by some grave sin which call for the Lord's reprobation.
All the Jews of the time were
impatiently waiting for the promised Messiah. They all
hoped that the Messiah would stem from one of their descendants.
Not to have
children was deemed a rejection from Yahweh, a punishment from above, a
total
disgrace.
Anne and Joachim, who loved the Lord
and longed for the coming of the Savior,
accepted their shameful infertility in silence and prayer, but their
heart was desperately
broken all the same.
One day, Joachim came to the temple in
Jerusalem with an offering, but Ruben, the priest, turned down his gift
in the name of the Lord and harshly scolded him for the
sterility of his marriage.
"Joachim, how dare you make an
offering to God while you are stricken with infertility? Don't
mingle with Yahweh's faithful; go away! Your gift will but
irritate the Lord; it cannot be agreeable to Him".
That was too much for Joachim's
sensitive and delicate heart to bear and he resolved not to return to
his wife Anne, but to retire to the desert.
Months and months passed while Joachim
kept asking God in his prayers to relieve him of his painful
disgrace. As for Anne, she then grieved not only for her
sterility,
but also for the absence of her husband. Her daily prayer was
nothing but a cry of anguish toward her beloved God.
It was total darkness in the heart and
the mind of these two saints. It was the night
of apparent abandonment by God, the One they loved above all and strove
to serve in
perfect loyalty.
They were groping in a tunnel where
not even a flicker of light could bring so much
as a glimmer of hope.
But, God never turns a deaf ear to
prayer. He was attentive to this couple who had remained loyal to
Him even in time of trial." Your infertility will soon come
to an end". As He had taken care of Job and Tobias, so He did
with Anne and Joachim. An angel was sent from Heaven to reassure
Joachim: "Your infertility will soon come to an end".
Encouraged by the heavenly message,
Joachim started on his way back to his wife.
He found her waiting for him at the Golden Gate of the Temple. In
their long, tender embrace, they both felt sure that their trial was
over and that God had answered their prayer.
The Lord, as I already said, invites
us to judge the tree by its fruits. If there is ever
a fruit agreeable to look at, it is Mary! Since her
early childhood, she was favored by
God. But, this fruit is due to Saint Anne. She gave birth to
her and patiently, with tender kindness, made her understand the beauty
of a virtuous life, the value of fraternal charity and the necessity of
total love for the Lord.
If so many mothers and fathers worry
to death about their children married or not, they can always
turn to Saint Anne and ask her to
protect their children, she who did so much for her own daughter, Mary.
At the time their union appeared
sterile, Anne and Joachim had vowed to consecrate to God any child they
might have in the future. They renewed this vow when Anne became
pregnant. Today also many Christian parents consecrate their
children to
the Lord even before their birth.
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