What Mary’s Presentation Teaches Us About Parenting, by Michele Chronister

By Michele Chronister, Catholic Exchange, November 21, 2024

Michele Chronister is a wife, and mother to three little girls and one little one in heaven. She received her BA and MA in theology from the University of Notre Dame (’09 and ’11). …

The feast of the Presentation of Mary is also the baptism anniversary of my oldest daughter. I remember taking her to Mass on that feast day when she was a toddler, about the same age that Mary was when she was presented in the Temple, and struggling to imagine what it must have been like for Sts. Joachim and Anne to leave her at the Temple at that age.

Tradition tells us that St. Anne and St. Joachim, the mother and father of Mary, suffered from infertility for many years. Pious tradition tells the story of Joachim going out to the desert to pray, where Anne and he were both given a message from God that they would conceive a child. Joachim rushes home to Anne, and Mary is (immaculately) conceived. Icons of St. Anne and St. Joachim typically feature the moment when they are reunited at the city gates, overjoyed by the promise that God has made them. My husband and I have only experienced relatively short (less than two years) times of infertility, but I know all too well what a gift a long awaited child feels like. St. Anne must have experienced such incredible joy, the first time that she held baby Mary in her arms. Joachim, like all good fathers of daughters, must have delighted in having a little girl of his own….

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