Notice

Dear Friends,

It seems as though this blog must be doing much good for just as we were to begin the Novena to Saint Anne the hard drive on my computer crashed. I truly think it was the old prince of darkness behind it since it seems that there is nothing wrong with the drive and everything is almost back in working order. For some reason he is very afraid of the Novena to Saint Anne. Of course, this means that we must persist in our prayers to our good and loving Saint. I will post all of the meditations for Saint Anne's Month as well as the Novena Prayers and posts on the Shrines of St. Anne as originally planned. We will just have a Novena in Thanksgiving to God for the goodness of Saint Anne and for all the blessings He has bestowed through her intercession.

May Good Saint Anne continue to hear the prayers we pour forth and intercede for us!

In Jesus and Mary,

Fr. Scott Bailey, C.Ss.R.

The Seventeenth Day of July

St. Anne Leads Mary to the Temple.

Of all the acts of virtue performed by the holy spouses Joachim and Anne, by means of which they grew in favor with God and enriched themselves with so many merits, there is none more striking than the sacrifice which they made in separating them selves from their only and beloved Daughter on the day of her Presentation. In order to understand how agreeable this sacrifice was to God, we must consider how dear to her parents was this only Daughter sent to them in their old age, as the fruit of so many prayers and tears. In fact this lovely Child of three years old must have been charming in the eyes of every one who beheld her, combining as she did a perfect use of reason and sublime holiness with the graces of person natural to her tender age. How hard then must it have been for her parents to allow her to depart!

From the time of her birth they had lived only for her; they lived more in her life than in their own; it had become a necessity to them to see her every moment, to gaze at her, to speak to her, to hold her in their arms: how then could they accustom themselves to live without her? How sad would their home be when Mary should no longer be there! Very soon they would miss seeing her come of a morning, to kneel and ask their blessing, and then throw herself into their arms; they would no longer have her beside them at table; her voice would not resound in their ears, that voice which thrilled through them and which seemed to them like an echo of the angels voices singing the praise of God! However, they had vowed her to God and did not wish to draw back; they had ever looked on her as a sacred deposit and not as their own property and they would have thought themselves guilty of retaining what was not theirs, even of sacrilege, had they kept her with them beyond the appointed time. The harder was the sacrifice, the more did their spirits rejoice in giving her to God and thus honoring the Lord by an offering of what was dearer to them than their own eyes or their life, a part of their very selves, as the Wise Man expresses it. By this they showed themselves to be parents worthy of Mary who, uniting her will to that of the Heavenly Father, was one day to sacrifice her only Son for the glory of God and our salvation; and worthy too of being grandparents of JESUS Himself who, for love of us, was to make Himself obedient even unto the death of the Cross. Likewise these two holy spouses gave a great and important lesson to those parents who, through an excessive and too purely natural tenderness, oppose the religious vocation of their children, and even go so far as purposing to plunge them into the whirlpool of worldly pleasures, under the pretext of trying their vocation, but in reality in order to make them lose it. What would have happened if Mary’s parents had acted thus, and if (by impossibility) the holy Child had, through their fault, resist ed the call of the Holy Ghost? How many daughters would now be in Heaven and would have won their mother’s entry there, if they had but followed the attraction of grace, but now, in a like condemnation, they curse those mothers and reproach them with their ruin!

But what a glory was it not to the good St. Anne and her holy husband, through their generosity, to have contributed to the happiness and glory of the Queen of the universe! What a claim it gave them to the eternal gratitude of their beloved Daughter! For if it be true that Mary had been predestined from all eternity to the unparalleled honor of the Divine maternity, it is also true that she, on her side, was to do her utmost to fit her self for her high destiny; it is equally and undoubtedly true that her consecration to God from her earliest childhood, a consecration for which she was indebted to her pious parents, greatly contributed to forwarding God’s designs on her. Lastly, it is also true that the sublime act of Anne and Joachim drew down graces not only on their own heads, but also on hers, in direct proportion with the suffering this act caused them, and the love which prompted it.

EXAMPLE.

The following is from the Annales de Ste Anne as written by Mlle. Levinia Dorion of Ayhner.

For three years and nine months, I had kept my bed, suffering from a white swelling in the left knee. Several doctors had attended me and had finally declared my case incurable. I had lost all hopes of benefitting by human aid, but on the other hand, my heart was filled with great faith in St. Anne and an intense desire of making a pilgrimage to St. Anne de Beaupre. At first I saw no means of carrying out this desire, but finally, after praying fervently to St. Anne, I was enabled to do so.

Just a few days before starting on my journey, I was so worn out with weakness and suffering that my doctor had pronounced amputation to be absolutely necessary.

However I set forth. I was carried to the railway station at Ayhner, from the train to the boat and from the boat to the church, where I was laid in the center aisle at the feet of the statue. The journey had fatigued me so much that my weakness was extreme and I lay as one dead. The time for Holy Communion having arrived, I perceived that something extraordinary was passing within me. I felt my heart more filled than ever with confidence and offered up the most fervent aspirations to Heaven, whilst a thrill of happiness penetrated my whole being. Immediately afterwards I felt my former strength gradually returning to me.

In obedience to some inexplicable impulse I rose, quite unassisted, and approaching the altar rail received Holy Communion. I then returned to my place and falling on my knees remained in prayer for a quarter of an hour. Kneeling on the very knee that had caused me so much suffering, I offered up my most fervent thanksgiving for the grace I had received. I was perfectly cured. This happened, July 3ist 1883. All glory to the great St. Anne!

PRAYER.

My beloved Patroness, thou knowest how far I am from possessing thy generosity, how weak, tepid and cowardly I am in the divine service; thou knowest that for many months, nay years, God has been daily and in vain asking of me the sacrifice of this affection, this entanglement, this relation, this pleasure, this sensuality, this frivolity, the source of all my sins, or, at any rate, of my remaining stationary, if nothing worse, in the way of Christian perfection. I beg of thee, great Saint, for the glory of JESUS and the honor of Mary, whom thou didst so generously offer to the Lord at the first dawn of her life, to obtain for me, by thy good and powerful prayers, the strength to surmount whatever obstacle is keeping me from giving my whole love to God. Do this, and thou wilt have won for me both peace of soul and eternal salvation.

Good St. Anne, obtain for me generosity in God’s service which may resemble thine.

PRACTICE.

Invoke the help of St. Anne whenever God or your own conscience demands some painful sacrifice of you: she knows well how to make it easier for you.

Solemn Novena of Saint Anne

Tomorrow, July 17th, is the first day of the Solemn Novena of Saint Anne. Countless people throughout the world will be joining together in prayer for their own intentions and the intentions of all those making the novena. The Solemn Novena concludes on July 25, the eve of the Feast of Saint's Joachim and Anne. In some places the Solemn Novena commences on July 18 and concludes on the feastday itself.

Beginning tomorrow there will be a special Novena post in addition to the regular daily post that will continue through the end of July. Each post will focus on a different shrine dedicated to Saint Anne where pilgrims will be gathering especially during these nine days in preparation for her feast and in celebration of her feast itself. There will also be a link to a page with the novena prayers.

I have three things to ask of you:

1. Prepare your intentions for the Solemn Novena and write them down. Place them in your prayerbook or at the place you say your prayers so you will not forget them each day when you pray the novena prayers. Please include my intentions as well as those of all who are connected via this "blog novena."
2. Tell your friends, family members, co-workers, church members, neighbors about the novena and give them the link to the blog. Let us "storm heaven" and St. Anne with our prayers.
3. If you know of a shrine dedicated to St. Anne or a parish that is holding novena devotions or celebrating the Feast of St. Anne with special solemnity, please email me with the complete name and location along with a link to their website or the schedule of services at JScottBaileyCSsR (at) gmail (dot) com [replace at with @ and dot with . ]

May Jesus, His Mother, and His Grandmother bless you and watch over you.

Fr. Scott Bailey, C.Ss.R.

The Sixteenth Day of July

First Lessons Given by St. Anne to Mary.

Founding our statement on the authority of the Doctors of the Church, and especially of St. Alphonsus, we have already said that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the very first instant of her life, was endowed with the full and entire use of her reason. For we cannot doubt that the Queen of Angels enjoyed the same privilege as was granted to St. John the Baptist, three months before his birth, by means of Mary. St. Anne early perceived the miraculous spiritual precocity of her beloved Daughter and hastened to impart to her the first principles of religion and piety. She told her of the creation of the world, of the disobedience of our first parents and the misfortunes which resulted therefrom; she recounted the promise of a Redeemer and related the history of the Patriarchs and Saints of the Old Testament.

These things had already been revealed to the holy Child by the Holy Ghost, but nevertheless she listened silently and attentively to her Mother’s lessons imprinting them on her memory and meditating on them in her heart. Anne taught her little Daughter also what she herself knew so well; how to pray, and the blessed Child who knew this still better than her Mother, nevertheless redoubled her assiduity, day and night beseeching the God of Abraham to hasten the coming of the Savior and the redemption of the human race. Also on learning from her Mother that, according to the opinion of the doctors of the Law and the revelations made to various holy souls, the day of mercy was drawing near, when a descendant of David was to become the Mother of Christ, she prayed to be spared long enough to behold this admirable women, to kiss her feet and minister to her. These humble and fervent prayers offered by the Daughter and the Mother were most agreeable to God and most efficacious, for who can tell how many favors they were the means of obtaining for the human race?

On joyfully perceiving the happy result of these lessons, Anne resolved to make known to her beloved Daughter how she had obtained her from the Lord; she spoke to her of the sadness in which she and St. Joachim had passed the greater part of their life, on account of their having no posterity who might love and praise the God of Abraham when they themselves should have passed away. She told her of their nights spent in prayer and weeping; and lastly, of the joy that filled their hearts when they knew that God had granted their heart’s desire. Like oil poured in abundance on burning coals, this revelation kindled in the little Mary’s heart, a redoubled veneration, gratitude and love for her holy parents, since she perceived how doubly she was indebted to them for her life. This revelation, too, increased the warmth of her love of God and strengthened her resolution of being His entirely and for ever. Her Mother would then speak to her of the miraculous birth of Isaac and Samuel, and at last imparted to her that, like the mother of that prophet, she herself had promised God to consecrate to Him her Child if He would but vouchsafe to bestow one on her. Imagine the Child’s delight on hearing this! From that time forward she longed for the day when she might dwell entirely in the house of God. In her heart, she sang with the Psalmist: "How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God. For the sparrow hath found herself a house and the turtledove a nest for herself—Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are they who dwell in Thy house, O Lord; they shall praise Thee for ever and ever. When shall I go, when shall I appear in the presence of the Lord?"

Thus, hardly had Anne received the Child so ardently desired and so altogether lovely, than offering to God the sacrifice of her own happiness in beholding her, embracing her, speaking to her, she herself inspired her with the wish to leave all and give herself entirely to her Creator; and the sweet Child, on her part, worthy of so holy a Mother, only sighed for the day when she should by her own act, deprive herself of the caresses and sweet innocent pleasures that were hers under her parent’s roof, although still of an age when a parent’s care and companionship seem the most necessary to a child. St. Joachim was in no way behind his spouse and Daughter. When the Holy Ghost inspires such lovely sentiments in several hearts at once, it is a sign that He is preparing the way for some great event.

EXAMPLE.

Abbé Gosselin writes that on Sept. 30th, 1874, he was a witness of an extraordinary miracle. A young girl from the parish of St. Croix, Caroline Lemay by name, who, for several years had been entirely unable to walk, had arrived at St. Anne’s, the previous evening. Stretched nearly motionless on a bed and worn to a shadow, many persons were heard remarking that St. Anne would have a hard task to perform if she enabled this girl to wear the clothes she had brought with her, for this courageous girl had such faith and confidence in the intercession of St. Anne, that she had brought with her the dress she looked forward to wear on her return. The next morning, she had herself carried to the church where she heard the first Mass. After having given her Holy Communion, the Curé made her venerate the relic and she immediately experienced considerable relief. Abbé Gosselin then said the second Mass and after the Elevation she left her couch. At the termination of the Mass, she walked several times round the church and then partook of food with an excellent appetite. A few days later, she was strong enough to walk down the long quay leading to the steamboat.

PRAYER.

This is indeed why I myself, who by my baptism was called to a state of holiness, have nevertheless remained a most miserable sinner! From my earliest childhood I have heard the voice of the Holy Ghost inspiring me to walk in the sweet and peaceful paths of innocence and piety; and yet even then I commenced to wander along the broad way that leadeth to destruction. I heard this voice again in youth and again closed my ears to it as inopportune; I plunged into turbulent pleasures to drown the sound of that voice; I rejected the gentle yoke it would have placed on me; I deliberately chose to wear the heavy chain of vice and sin. In riper years, under a more guarded exterior, my faults have but increased, for of virtues I have none. Thus has my life flowed on in uselessness, sin, trouble and remorse: for who ever found repose when resisting the inspirations of God? God forbid that I should lose courage entirely. Good St Anne, obtain for me that if my life be longer spared, I may give myself entirely to God and strive to correct my faults. Do thou and thy beloved Spouse intercede for me with JESUS and with the aid of Mary and Joseph, obtain for me the grace of being faithful to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost, so that I may welcome these as heavenly messengers and enter resolutely on the way which will eventually lead me to life everlasting.

St. Anne, obtain for me the same fidelity to divine inspirations as that shown by thee and Mary.

PRACTICE.

Every Christian, from the very fact that he is a Christian, has a high and noble destiny awaiting him, for he is bound to aspire to a holiness conformable to his state of life. It is from resistance to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost that so few attain this state of holiness.

The Fifteenth Day of July

St. Anne Beside Mary’s Cradle (continued).

Beside Mary’s cradle, Anne did not merely dream of the future as mothers so often do, but she also prayed. If mothers only knew the power they hold over the happiness and welfare of their children through prayer! How many children have owed their great and beautiful vocation, their holiness, their life’s happiness, their predestination, to the prayers of a good mother gathered up by that mother’s Angel-guardian and presented to God! What superabundant glory and joy for the mothers of St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Dominic, St. Francis Xavier, St. Aloysius, St. Teresa, St. Francis of Sales, St. Alphonsus, for the mothers of an infinite number of good priests, religious and other Elect, to be able to say eternally: "This Saint who has contributed so much to the divine glory, and who is now shining in the front ranks of the just, amid the Archangels, the Cherubim and Seraphim, this Saint is my child, and after God it is to me that he owes this happiness" (St. Teresa of Avila).

Had St. Anne anything to do with the perfection, the holiness, the eternal glory of her Blessed Daughter? We cannot doubt it. She had obtained her from God, through continual prayer joined to rigorous fasts and abundant almsgiving, and no sooner did she receive this Child whom she had so ardently desired, than she devoted her life to her alone, so as to assure her the greatest possible amount of happiness. And as in her eyes, holiness and happiness were one and the same thing, and God alone can communicate happiness to his creatures, Anne, in order to assure that happiness to her Daughter, now offered to God the same prayers, fasts and good works which formerly she had offered with a view to obtaining her.

But was not Mary full of grace from the very first moment of her existence? Doubtless; she was filled with it in the sense that she possessed all the grace necessary for a Child destined to be the Mother of God, but not all the grace and all the virtues necessary for her at the moment when she should become really the Mother of God.

Like the dawn of the morning, to which she is compared in Scripture, and like the rose she was to increase in splendor and beauty continually, even until the day of the Annunciation and the day of her blessed death. And who can tell the favors obtained for her by her holy Mother’s prayers, thus aiding her to attain to sublime perfection? The prayer of a mother for the spiritual welfare of her child is ever agreeable to Him Who has ordered us to call Him our Father!

How many times kneeling by the cradle of her Daughter, Anne’s prayers mounted to the throne of God, couched in language like the following: My God who didst vouchsafe to send me this child when all hopes were at an end, Thou knowest how dear she is to me. Dear Lord! grant me the crowning grace of keeping her as pure as she now is; take her from me now rather than let her ever be defiled by sin. Thou, Author of every perfect gift, bestow on her Thy choicest favors: I ask for her neither riches, nor a noble alliance, nor earthly prosperity, for perchance she might be led away by the allurements of the world. But grant her the fear of Thee, inviolable purity, love of the poor and a spirit of piety.

These prayers emanating from so pure and humble a heart, ascended straight to Heaven, whence they returned like a celestial dew falling on Mary’s head and making her in crease in holiness day by day. What glory was it not for the blessed Anne thus to have contributed to Mary’s sanctification, that is to say, to the completion of the most beautiful piece of creation that ever sprang from God’s hand!

EXAMPLE.

The pilgrimage from Ange Gardien de Ronville, which took place in July 1880, was singularly fertile in miraculous favors received. What is especially notable is that they were instantaneous and complete. From among them are the three following:

A woman had for many years been afflicted with sores on her hands and arms. Immediately on plunging them in the water from St. Anne’s fountain, the wounds were completely cured, leaving not the slightest trace of their ever having existed. The parish priest and many others attest to these facts, having seen her before and after her miraculous cure.

Another most striking miracle was that performed on a child three and a half years old. For two years she had seen nothing and her father carried her in his arms on this pilgrimage. At the very moment when the holy relic was about to be held to her lips, she exclaimed: "Good St. Anne, please cure me." She instantaneously recovered her sight. Her name is Marie Louise Laroque.

A woman from Stanbridge, in the parish of Bedford, Mme Solyme Davignan, had, for seven years, been obliged to walk with one knee on a chair which she pushed before her. On entering the church of St. Anne de Beaupre, assisted by two persons, she felt herself instantaneously cured.

PRAYER.

A Mother’s Prayer for Herself and Her Children.

Glorious Mother of the Queen of Angels, my patroness and my model, I beseech thee from the throne where God hath placed thee, to cast down a loving look on thy humble servant. Thou knowest how weak I am, how filled with imperfections, how worldly, how utterly unlike unto thee. Good St. Anne, ask Our Lord to grant me the virtues necessary for a good mother; tenderness allied with firmness, an unceasing vigilance, an inexhaustible patience, a courage proof against all tribulations and difficulties. Obtain for me so lively a faith that I may prize my children’s souls far higher than their bodies, that I may consider them more as made in the image of God than as being of my own blood, so that I may long more ardently for their salvation than for any other temporal advantage. Permit me to consecrate these beloved beings to thee; do thou take them under thy protection and recommend them daily to JESUS and Mary, so that their innocence being preserved, they may daily increase in virtue and piety, may glorify their Heavenly Father in this life, and in union with thee may sing praises in the next to all eternity.

Prayer of a Child for its Mother.

Beloved St. Anne, holy Mother of Mary, be thou the refuge and consolation of my good mother.

PRACTICE.

"It is a bad son who never prays for his mother," said a holy man. It is but a sorry mother, we would add, who never prays for her child, or her child’s soul. Children pray daily for your parents. Parents pray daily for your children.

The Fourteenth Day of July

St. Anne Beside Mary’s Cradle.

A great orator has said that except the gaze which God directs over the world, there is nothing finer than the glance cast by an old man on a child. Perhaps there is something still finer: a mother’s gaze on her child when that mother is a Saint and knows that her child will be a Saint. This can but rarely be met with, but it has been seen: for example, such was the gaze bent on St. John the Baptist by Elisabeth; and, more particularly, that bent on Mary by St. Anne.

Leaning over her child’s cradle, a mother loves to look into the future of that little being, to weave for it a golden existence, to picture it rich, powerful, honored, happy; princes then destine their daughters to illustrious alliances, they dispose of them before even knowing them; see in them instruments of their own ambition, and build hopes without end on these little fragile beings whom a breath might destroy. What hopes and thoughts then filled the mind of St. Anne when she contemplated her beloved Daughter sleeping in her cradle? She too formed ambitious dreams and foresaw a future full of glory and happiness. But the ambitious dreams, hopes and aspirations of St. Anne were those formed by a saintly Mother for a saintly Daughter. She rightly looked on her child as the temple of the Holy Ghost; she knew perfectly that Mary was very agreeable to God. The love she bestowed on her Child was therefore all the more tender and ardent; but it was a love full of respect and veneration, like that of the holy Levites for the Ark of alliance in which the Lord reposed. Looking on herself not as the proprietor but only as the guardian of this unique treasure, she was far from wishing to dispose of it independently of God, as mothers do too often, thus counteracting the divine plans which would have led their children to true happiness. Anne, therefore, entrusted her Child’ future entirely to God. But she loved to picture that future according to her own inclinations. She did not picture Mary to herself as rich, or as seated on a throne, but as a Saint and a great Saint, attaining the perfection of Sara, Rebecca, ancestresses of the Hebrews; of Judith, of Esther, of Deborah their deliverers; of Anna, the mother of Samuel, and of the prophetess Anna, Daughter of Phanuel who lived in the temple and whose piety was known to all. Such was the ambition and such were the wishes of the saintly Mother; such was the object of her prayers. She would not have dared to aspire any higher. She knew that the time had come when the Savior was to appear on earth, that His coming was expected day by day, that He was to be born of the race of David of whom Joachim was directly descended; but never did it enter her mind that her Savior would consent to become her Grandson. She would have thought herself too blessed if her beloved Daughter had been found worthy of being the handmaid of the handmaid of the Messiah and of washing their feet. These holy dispositions were most agreeable to the Most High and not only increased the merits of the happy Mother, but also drew down many graces on the sacred head of her august Child. How much more numerous would Saints be in the Church of God, if all mothers resembled St. Anne a little more! How many scandalous sinners would be models of virtue, if they had a mother worthy of the name!

EXAMPLE.

A lady from St. Julie de Somerset writes to the shrine of St. Anne as follows:

On June, 3rd 1879, I was suddenly taken with dyspepsia and no medical treatment succeeded in relieving my sufferings. For eighteen months I remained between life and death, my relations and friends all considering this to be my last illness.

All this time I had not ceased praying to St. Anne, asking her, for my children s sake, to give me back my health. I asked my friends to join their prayers to mine and many novenas and Communions were offered for me. I also had several Masses said for my intention. St. Anne, however, appeared to turn a deaf ear to all our entreaties. I did not lose faith, for I knew St. Anne to be so good and so powerful that she could obtain for us what we asked, if she only judged it beneficial to us. Our perseverance was rewarded. At the end of those eighteen months of suffering, a great amelioration took place, and I found myself able to take some slight nourishment. Gradually my strength increased until my health gradually improved. In July, 1882, I was enabled to visit the Sanctuary of St. Anne de Beaupre and pour forth my heart in gratitude to that powerful protectress who had so signally favored her unworthy servant. On my return, my health improved rapidly and continues excellent.

PRAYER.

Glorious St. Anne, patroness and model of Christian mothers, pray for those mothers; obtain for them the gifts of the Holy Ghost, so that they may worthily fulfil the duties of their state of life, to the glory of JESUS-CHRIST, giving to God as many elect as He has given them children. Obtain for them the gift of Understanding, so that they may realize what honor God has done them by entrusting them with the education of a soul created to His image, purchased with the blood of His Son and destined to praise Him to all eternity; the gift of Wisdom where by they may esteem their children’s salvation above their worldly prosperity; the gifts of Counsel and Prudence, so that they may know how to choose and employ the best means of rendering their children worthy of being children of God and keep them from all dangers that might imperil their innocence; the gift of Fear, so that they may know how to inspire them with the fear of offending God. The gift of Piety, so that from their very earliest years, they may impart to them a tender filial love of God their Father in Heaven. Pray also for Christian children, so that by their docility, their respect, their love for the authors of their being, they may be the joy of their parents on earth and their crown in eternity.

Great St. Anne, in these sad and trying times, be thou more than ever the consolation and support of mothers and the protectress of their children.

PRACTICE.

Christian mothers, learn from St. Anne what you should have in view in bringing up your children. Christian children, to whom God has given a pious mother, look on her as the most precious gift He has be stowed on you here below.

The Thirteenth Day of July

Birth of Mary (continued.)

Besides the relations, friends and neighbors who thronged to offer their congratulations on the occasion of Mary’s birth, the house of Joachim and Anne was visited by a numerous cohort of invisible beings. First there were legions of Angels from all the choirs, attracted by the splendor which shone forth from the lovely soul of the blessed Child and by the divine odor of the graces with which she was filled, and which inspired her to make acts of sublime virtue. Spiritual things are as open to the gaze of Angels as corporeal things are to ours; and even as the angels of darkness are attracted by the foul odors that emanate, as it were, from the sins of pride, of hatred, of lying, of impurity, so are the Angels of light attracted by the sweet perfume of the violet of humility, the lily of chastity, the rose of charity. Perceiving that the Daughter of Anne had been preserved from original sin and its consequences, they foresaw her noble destiny. What specially attracted them was the burning furnace of divine love which was kindled in her heart and of which they would have been jealous had not they themselves been so filled with charity towards God and towards fallen man, that they rejoiced at whatever could procure glory to their Lord or the redemption of poor human kind.

Did these happy spirits make themselves visibly manifest to Mary’s parents? It cannot br said; yet it cannot be doubted but that these latter experienced the happy effects of so holy a companionship. Every pious soul has remarked that while in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament a certain indefinable well-being is experienced, a peace, a sweet joy, a something indescribable which is never felt elsewhere. In the world, in the domestic circle a more keenly perceptible joy may sometimes be experienced, but this joy only affects the soul superficially, whilst the joy felt at the foot of the altar penetrates the whole being like oil poured upon a garment. Whence comes this joy? Doubtless the real presence of Our Lord is the principal cause, but it also arises from the presence of the Angels, who, according to St. Chrysostom, are always flocking in great numbers around the tabernacle. The salutary effects of their presence makes itself felt by each person in proportion with the purity of his conscience and the amount of divine love that reigns in his heart amidst these Angels. Joachim and Anne, who were so pure, so detached from earth, so loving, were like grains of incense amid burning coals: they, as it were, exhaled a fragrance similar to that which floats of an evening above an incensed altar.

But this was not all: the house of Anne was visited by far nobler beings than the Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, even by the three adorable Persons of the Eternal Trinity, who took delight in the heart of the infant Mary, which was a worthy sanctuary of their own holiness.

The Father, Son and Holy Ghost took up their abode in this heart and dwelt there, not only because therein was their delight, but also that they might vie with one another in bestowing their choicest gifts on the happy Child and thus render her more and more worthy of her high destiny. For God, who is infinite activity in perfect repose, is nowhere idle: in Heaven he is guiding the stars in their orbits; on earth, he is causing our harvests to spring up and ripen; and in the hearts of the just he is constantly performing a work worthy of him, viz. the sanctification of each particular soul. But we also believe that whilst preparing in Mary a dwelling fitted for the reception of that Majesty that would deign to become Flesh within her womb, God bestowed most bountiful gifts on the father and mother of His well-beloved. By means of prayers and fasts, the first Anne had obtained a son who became the prophet Samuel, and having consecrated him to God, the high-priest Heli blessed her and desired of God that He would send her other children as a recompense for the offering she had made to God of her first born. And these desires were granted. We may therefore well believe that the august Trinity took delight in bestowing graces on the two holy spouses who, by their prayers and good works, had merited the happiness of having a Child in whom the Father found so perfect a Daughter, the Holy Ghost so accomplished a Spouse, and whom the Son already looked on as His Mother.

EXAMPLE.

Anne Franchet, Viscountess of Tonqueduc had for a long time been suffering from very severe intermittent fever, the attacks of which occurred with little or no intermission. She also took a severe cold accompanied by a most painful sore throat. When the illness first attacked her, she proposed making a pilgrimage, and, on finding that she was growing worse, she became still more eager to accomplish her vow, being persuaded that St. Anne would relieve her. Her husband could not refuse complying with her wishes and took her himself to the shrine. The sick woman s faith met at first with a severe trial; for, having satisfied her devotion at great length, and the hour of departure having arrived, instead of feeling any relief, her sufferings had increased. The pilgrims entered their carriage therefore with heavy hearts, since St. Anne had not seen fit to listen to their ardent prayers. On arriving at Meriadec, on the road to Vannes, the viscountess remembered that she had omitted drinking any of the water of the fountain, and wished to repair her negligence. The carriage was stopped and a footman sent back for some in all haste. On his return, in spite of her being at the moment in the greatest state of suffering from an access of her fever, she would not delay drinking the St. Anne’s water. Hardly had she put it to her lips when the fever left her as if by enchantment. The Viscount who had recently been converted from Calvinism was so struck by this miracle and so rejoiced at it, that he immediately had an official report of it drawn up.

PRAYER.

He who has Mary has all. For where Mary is there will JESUS hasten, accompanied by the heavenly Father, the author of every good and perfect gift, and the Holy Ghost. Who is the giver of grace. As for the Angels of light, they watch over those whom their Queen loves. How happy should I be, then, if I could draw down on myself the loving regards of that Mother of Mercy! My powerful protectors, Joachim and Anne, this is my most ardent wish and you can obtain it for me. Say one word in my favor to your beloved Daughter; tell Mary that I would rather be the least of her servants than command the whole world; beg of her not to reject me because of my unworthiness. Thus you will have saved a soul, and what could be more worthy of the father and mother of Her through whom salvation has come to us?

Glorious parents of Mary, obtain me the grace of loving her tenderly and constantly.

PRACTICE.

Follow St. Alphonsus advice and invoke the intercession of the St. Joachim and St. Anne in order to obtain a tender and constant love for Mary.