Celebrating St. Anne and the Immaculate Conception

During Advent, we meditate on the events that happened before our Savior, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem.  The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is December 8th and just happened to fall on the Second Sunday of Advent this year.

This is a very confusing feast to most, Catholics included.

Here it is in a nutshell:  The Immaculate Conception does not have anything to do with the Annunciation and the conception of Jesus;  the Immaculate Conception is referring to the conception of Mary in the womb of Saint Anne.

Just as we would never put our most precious processions into any kind of filthy storage container, neither would God allow his Son to come to us by way of a sinful human.

Mary was not like us, she was not a human being like any other human in history.  She was the Mother of God.  His blood mingled with hers in her womb, he formed in the amniotic fluid of her body's making.  The idea that the Lord of the Universe would reside in an impure body is ludicrous.

We don't know much about Saint Anne and her husband Saint Joachim.   But tradition of our church calls them the Grandparents of Jesus.


There is a church dedicated to Saint Anne just inside St. Stephen's or the Lion's Gate in Jerusalem.  It is traditionally held that this is where the Virgin Mary was born and lived as a child with her parents Anne & Joachim. 

St. Anne's Church, Jerusalem

It stands inside a garden courtyard which also contains a lot of ruins (including the Pools of Bethesda) looking very tall and strong-looking; sturdy and magnificent compared to many other ancient buildings and structures in Israel. 

 

This is because it was not destroyed in 1192 during one of the many captures of the city, it was instead used as a Muslim school, so it was saved.

The garden of St. Anne's is an oasis from the narrow, crowded streets of Old Jerusalem on one side and the bustle and traffic of the modern city on the other.

Here we were given time to rest in the shade and take in the beauty of the flowers and surrounding architecture.  Fr. T read from scripture, but sadly, I cannot remember which passage he read to us.

It is a lovely, restful place (with clean bathrooms) and many benches in the shade.

I enjoyed spending time there, although I spent more time marveling at the flowers (see what I call "Israeli Kudzu" (bougainvillea) in the photo above).

This was a good place to refill water bottles and chat with the priest-caretakers of the site, The White Fathers.

The are Missionaries of Africa and are called the White Fathers due to the color of the habit they wear.

The Church of St Anne is the best-preserved Crusader church in Jerusalem. It marks the traditional site of the home of Jesus’ maternal grandparents, Anne and Joachim, and the birthplace of the Virgin Mary.

We entered the Church through a gorgeous medieval-looking door and walked into the very high-ceiling Sanctuary.

Another pilgrim group was inside singing.  The Church of St. Anne is renowned for its remarkable acoustics and reverberating echoes. The voices of even a small choral group can sound like a large congregation in a vast cathedral.  Although the church was designed for Gregorian Chant, it is said that you can "play" it like a musical instrument with your human voice.

I was really looking forward to hearing Fr. T sing with his gorgeous voice, but he would only sing with the group.  (I have noticed off the altar, outside of participating in Mass, he seems very humble of his beautiful voice and won't usually sing.)

The high ceiling and construction did make everyone sound just beautiful and like there were many more people singing than actually were.  *btw - anyone can sing, but only religious songs are allowed!

It would have been fabulous to have Fr. T say Mass there!

After our song, we walked around the sanctuary.

Main Altar - St. Anne's Church in Jerusalem

In the back of the church was a lovely statue of St. Anne with little St. Mary.

 

Look how sweetly little Mary appears here.  And St. Anne looks over her with obvious love in her face, but I also see something else.  Protection?  Wisdom?  Knowledge?  Surely she understood that this little one was special and different from other children?

Like St. Anne, I am a Mother and a Grandmother.  How very special it is, how very blessed I am.

Lastly, we descended into the crypt which held the remains of the house of Anne & Joachim.

You can see the roof is the natural rock of the cave.

Inside is a painting which shows St. Anne and St. Joachim with newborn baby Mary.  The Greek initials on the top-left side is "ΜΡ ΘΥ".  ΜΡ is "Mary" in Greek and ΘΥ is "God-bearer".  

Also in the cave is an altar dedicated to Mary's birth behind an ornate gate.

This is a closeup of the icon behind the gate. 

I have searched the internet for several hours and cannot find any information regarding this version of this event.  There are lots of similar paintings out there, but so far I have not been able to find anything on this one. 

As we came up the stairs I could hear another group singing on the altar with some angelic harmonies that echoed beautifully throughout the room.  I could see the bright sunshine though the doorway and smell the fresh air blowing in.

 What a lovely place!  What an oasis of grace it must have been when Mary was growing up here! 

In the courtyard garden of St. Anne's Church, Jerusalem