Anne does not appear in the canonical Gospels. Her story comes from the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal text written around the mid-2nd century, which describes her and her husband Joachim as an elderly, childless couple who prayed for years for a child, and who received Mary as an answer to that prayer.
Devotion to Anne as the mother of Mary is extremely ancient, attested in the Christian East by at least the 6th century and spreading to the West by the Middle Ages, when she became one of the most widely depicted and beloved saints in Christian art, often shown teaching the young Mary to read.
Feast · July 26
Saint Anne
Mother of the Virgin Mary
Venerated by ancient Christian tradition as the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus, honored especially by mothers and grandmothers.
- Patron of
- Mothers
Categories
Why People Pray to Saint Anne
Saint Anne is invoked by mothers, grandmothers, and couples struggling with infertility, drawing on the tradition of her own long wait to become a mother.
