Hannah’s (St. Ann) Most Illustrious Child, by Michael Pakaluk

For Catherine Ruth

The Virgin Mary’s mother was called “Hannah” in Hebrew, but we know her as “Anne” through the Latin via the Greek.  This Hannah and her husband, Joachim, according to old tradition, confirmed since by popes, brought their daughter, Mary, to the temple when she was a girl, to dedicate her to God.  The commemoration of this “Presentation of Our Lady” is the feast which the Church celebrates today.

You probably have given the feast no attention whatsoever.  Maybe you have thought in the back of your mind, “Oh, Mary was presented in the temple the way Jesus was,” and left it at that.  But of course there was no ritual presentation of first-born female offspring.  If Mary was “presented,” and this fact was so important that the Church still commemorates it, what was the reason?

I won’t say that the most ancient written document in this tradition filling out the story, The Proto-Evangelium of James, is reliable, yet it certainly is very interesting and worthy of your attention.  According to this “apocryphal gospel” and others like it, Hannah was barren and for over twenty years begged God for a child. …

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