Our volunteers chose Sts. Joachim & Anne to be among our patron saints. These are the names traditionally believed to be those of Mary’s parents. Though unnamed in the bible, they certainly existed and raised Mary. They assisted her on her path to holiness and gave her the human tools to be contemplative and ponder God’s will for her life. We ask Sts. Joachim & Anne to assist us in looking ever to God, saying “Let it be done to me according to your will”, to live in holiness and peace with our spouse and children, to be good guides to those to whom we teach NFP.
St. Anne’s thirst. Jesus said from the cross “I thirst.” God is the same yesterday as today, in him there is no changing; God has always thirsted for us. St. Anne participated in the thirst of God when she prayed for a child. God wants us to share in his divine life, to thirst with him for souls, for everlasting and infinite joy. We ask St. Anne to intercede for us, that we might thirst with God for souls, split the rock of hardened hearts and see our nations families growing. St. Anne, mother to the mother of God, grandmother to God, bend Jesus’ ear for us, ask him to bless our NFP ministry, and to bless us with fertile hearts.
How can we know what St. Joachim our patron was like, when the scriptures tell us nothing about him? But they do, Jesus himself told us something about St. Joachim when he told us in the positive “every good tree bears good fruit” and in the negative “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine”. Could the mother of God then have come from other than a most righteous and virtuous couple? No, the fruit of righteousness is a Tree of Life. So Mary, the Mother of God…Jesus, who is our Way, our Truth, and our Life…would have been entrusted to the best parents. We can confidently request the intercession of St. Joachim, who desired the good of the people of God, of the whole human race, and of you and I, when he willed with his wife, St. Anne, the blessing of a child, and hoped against hope for our redeemer. Praise be to God for the cooperation of Saints Joachim and Anne with his divine plan. May they assist us in our marriages, and in our NFP ministry of strengthening marriages within the divine plan.
“…For my thoughts are not your thoughts… declares the Lord.” So true, humans are seldom aware when God is working great works. We learn of them later as God’s plan unfolds. Consequently, we should always be asking for God’s presence and work in our lives. St. Joachim and Anne were present, but unaware of the singular grace that God worked in the world when Mary was conceived, not carrying the stain of original sin, within the womb of St. Anne. St. Anne joyfully cradled Mary. Together, Sts. Joachim and Anne, our spiritual grandparents, so to speak, cooperated with God in the early raising of the Mother of God. Lord, may we, your servants in the NFP ministry, pray in hope for your children whom you send us to serve, and wait patiently through the sterile times when things seem hopeless. May I be filled with confidence that while your ways are not my ways, that you are always working the redemption of the world.