PRAYER TO S. ANNA to obtain any grace

Prostrate at the feet of your throne or great and glorious St. Anna, I come to humiliate you my fervid prece, the prayer of the heart; welcome it benign give me thanks, pray for me.

The earth is truly the valley of tears - the path of life is seeded with thorns - the stormy heart feels the blows of pain strong - help me You, hear me. O dear Mother, pray for me.

Tired of crying, without a word of comfort and hope; oppressed under the weight of tribulations only in You, who well understand the pain of a soul, I place my hope after God and the Virgin. O dear mother, pray for me.

My sins were the cause of losing my peace of heart - the uncertainty of forgiveness makes my life sadder - impetrate me You divine mercy, love for God, the protection of Your Daughter O mother S. Anna pray for me.

Look at my house, my family - See how many misfortunes oppress me how many tribulations are around me ... O dear Mother, I ask you for peace and providence, especially peace of soul. Pray for me.

And now that I need graces do not abandon me You who are powerful at the throne of God. Remove from me the sadness and desolation, the dangers, the scourges of the Lord. Bless and save my soul; let me call you in life and death and feel you close. Pray for me, sweet comforter of the afflicted. Let one day be at Your feet in holy Paradise. So be it. Pater, Ave, Gloria.

Today the Church celebrates SS. Anna and Gioacchino "parents of the BV Maria SS.ma"
Anna and Gioacchino are the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Fathers of the Church have often remembered them in their works. Splendid, for example, the words of Saint John Damascene, bishop: «Since it had to happen that the Virgin Mother of God was born from Anna, nature dared not precede the seed of grace; but he remained without his own fruit for grace to produce his own. In fact, the firstborn was born from which the firstborn of every creature "in whom all things exist" would be born (Col 1,17:XNUMX). O happy couple, Gioacchino and Anna! Every creature is indebted to you, because for you the creature offered the Creator the most welcome gift, that is, the chaste mother, who alone was worthy of the creator ... O Joachim and Anna, the most chaste couple! You, preserving the chastity prescribed by the natural law, have achieved, by divine virtue, what goes beyond nature: you have given the world the mother of God who did not know man. You, leading a pious and holy life in the human condition, have given birth to a daughter older than the angels and now queen of the angels themselves ... »

Although there is little information about S. Anna, and moreover from neither official nor canonical texts, her cult is extremely widespread both in the East (XNUMXth century) and in the West (XNUMXth century - that of Joachim in the XNUMXth century .).
Almost every city has a church dedicated to her, Caserta considers her her heavenly patron, Anna's name is repeated in the headings of streets, wards of cities, clinics and other places; some Municipalities bear his name. The mother of the Virgin is the owner of various patronages almost all related to Mary but above all patroness of the mothers of the family, of the widows, of the women in labor; it is invoked in difficult parts and against marital sterility.

Anna derives from the Hebrew Hannah (grace) and is not remembered in the canonical Gospels; the apocryphal Gospels of the Nativity and Childhood speak of it, of which the oldest is the so-called "Proto-Gospel of St. James", written no later than the middle of the second century.
This tells that Gioacchino, Anna's husband, was a pious and very rich man and lived near Jerusalem, near the Fonte Probatica pool. One day while he was bringing his abundant offerings to the Temple, as he did every year, the high priest Ruben stopped him saying: "You have no right to do it first, because you have not begotten offspring."

Gioacchino and Anna were newlyweds who truly loved each other, but had no children and, given their age, they would no longer have; according to the Jewish mentality of the time, the high priest saw the divine curse on them, therefore they were sterile. The elderly rich shepherd, for the love he brought to his bride, did not want to find another woman to have a son; therefore, grieved by the words of the high priest, he went to the archive of the twelve tribes of Israel to check if what Ruben said was true and once he found that all the pious and observant men had had children, upset, he did not have the courage to go home and retired to his mountain land and for forty days and forty nights he begged for God's help amid tears, prayers and fasts. Anna also suffered from this sterility, to which was added the suffering for this "flight" of her husband; then he went into intense prayer asking God to grant their plea for a son.

During the prayer an angel appeared to her and announced: "Anna, Anna, the Lord has listened to your prayer and you will conceive and give birth and there will be talk of your offspring all over the world". So it happened and after a few months Anna gave birth. The "Proto-Gospel of St. James" concludes: "After the necessary days ..., he gave the stern to the girl by calling her Mary, that is," Beloved of the Lord "".