About Our Patroness St. Ann

Saint Ann is the Mother of the Blessed Virgin and her feast day is July 26th.

 St Ann Image
St. Ann, Protect Us As
You Protected the Virgin Mary


Of St. Ann we have no certain knowledge. She is not mentioned in the New Testament, and we must depend on apocryphal literature, chiefly the Protoevangelium of James, which dates back only to the second century. In this document we are told that Ann, wife of Joachim, was advanced in years and that her prayers for a child had not been answered.

 Once as she prayed beneath a laurel tree near her home in Galilee, an angel appeared and said to her, "Anne the Lord hath heard thy prayer and thou shalt conceive and bring forth, and thy seed shall be spoken of in all the world." Ann replied, "As the Lord my God liveth, if I beget either male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God; and it shall minister to Him in holy things all the days of its life " And thus Ann became the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

 She is patroness of housewives, women in labor, cabinet-makers, and miners. Her emblem is a door. St. Ann has been frequently represented in art, and the lovely face depicted by Leonardo daVinci comes first to mind in this connection. The name Ann derives from the Hebrew, Hannah, meaning "grace".