Jul 26 – Sts. Joachim and Anne, parents of the Virgin Mary
By tradition Joachim and Anne are considered to be the names of the parents of Mary, the Mother of God. We have no historical evidence, however, of any elements of their lives, including their names. Any stories about Mary’s father and mother come to us through legend and tradition. It was the parents of Mary who nurtured Mary, taught her, brought her up to be a worthy Mother of God. It was their teaching that led her to respond to God’s request with faith, “Let it be done to me as you will.” It was their example of parenting that Mary must have followed as she brought up her own son, Jesus. It was their faith that laid the foundation of courage and strength that allowed her to stand by the cross as her son was crucified and still believe. Such parents can be examples and models for all parents.
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=22
Sir 44:1,10-15
Mt 13:16-17
“I tell you solemnly, many prophets and holy men longed to see and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.”
If prophets and righteous men of the past didn’t see or hear ‘it’, what chances do you and I have in today’s world of noise?
Silence is difficult to find, and nearly impossible to create. Noise is the norm. If there isn’t noise around us, we tend to do anything to create it. Few want silence these days because we are made to view silence as ‘emptiness’. Aloneness as unwanted.
Of course, there are those who know they need silence — they tend to be those who crave being outside in nature, alone in their silence as their religion. But we all NEED silence, even those who are not hikers and nature or seashore walkers. It sounds nice to chill and relax occasionally, but to turn off, or even turn down the noise of our intelligent/tech-filled days on a daily or weekly schedule, well, we would miss out on too much. We won’t know what’s going on – we’ll look like stupid lonely fools to others if we turn off all the voices and sounds. And who wants that? It’s just not logical — it doesn’t make sense. We have to stay connected to – and through – the noise.
Yet, if we go back about 2,000 years, we find – at least – four people who didn’t cave in to the FOMO crowd, the crowd that ‘had to be in the know’ of everything around them. Mary, Joseph and Mary’s parents. The faith they had to bring Mary up to become the vessel God chose to redeem the world through a baby, and the faith to trust Mary when she explained how this came about.
A depth of faith that human words have yet to adequately explain.
I sit in amazement thinking about this – this unbelievable set of circumstances, and how their trust in Mary and their faith in God made all the difference.
I imagine that Mary, Joseph and her parents often sat in quiet amazement at what God had done and was doing. Sitting silently in His peace – without His peace I don’t think any of them would have been able to carry on. What was happening wasn’t simply unusual, or a once in a lifetime happening – it was participating in something they knew they didn’t understand and couldn’t explain. Something that could only begin to be understood in silence.
Today, we need to sit in amazement more than ever. To sit in silence so that we can hear our Father, and not the crowd; to sit in silence so that we can breathe in who we are and WHOSE we are, even though we live in a world that contains evil. To sit in silence and simply be with God.
“Silence is difficult, but it makes man able to allow himself to be led by God. Silence is born of silence. Through God the silent one, we can gain access to silence. And man is unceasingly surprised by the light that bursts forth then. Silence is more important than any other human work — for it expresses God. The true revolution comes from silence; it leads us toward God and others so as to place ourselves humbly and generously at their service…unless silence dwells in man, and unless solitude is a state in which he allows himself to be shaped, the creature is deprived of God. There is no place on earth where God is more present than in the human heart. This heart truly is God’s abode, the temple of silence.” (The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise, Robert Cardinal Sarah)
Perhaps today, we can pray for the intercession of Saints Joachim and Anne to assist us in finding silence with God in each and every day.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Gina Ulicny)
Prayer: Lord God, help us to find a daily place and space of silence so that we can rest in You alone.
Thanksgiving: Thank You Father, for the loving, steadfast, holy examples of St. Joachim and St. Anne.
OXYGEN 
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