From the Rector

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of three articles regarding changes to room names on Saint Philip’s campus.

Dear Friends in Christ,

France and England were among the first areas of western Europe where devotion to St. Anne began to catch on in the Middle Ages. The feast of St. Anne was observed at Canterbury from about 1100 A.D. and became obligatory throughout England in 1382.

Devotion to her really began to flourish in the late 12th century, as returning crusaders promoted the devotion they embraced during their time in the Holy Land. Before then, devotion to Saint Anne (from the Hebrew “Hannah”) was primarily found in the Eastern Church, beginning as early as the fourth century.

Neither St. Anne nor her husband, St. Joachim, is named in Scripture. Their names first appear in writing in the Protoevangelium of James, an extra-biblical writing that dates to about 145 A.D. If the account in the Protoevangelium of James reflects the authentic tradition, St. Anne and St. Joachim were a pious childless couple, advanced in years, when their prayers were answered by the birth of a daughter, Mary.

As devotion to Anne grew in Europe, however, some people began to claim to know even more of her story. A spurious tradition grew up that Mary, like Jesus, was the result of a virgin birth. The Church had to intervene to correct this situation, resulting in the dogmatic definition of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854: that Mary was conceived through normal marital relations but without sin.

Why all this about Saint Anne?

As we have repurposed the library space and await the renovation and construction of a new library, we have taken the opportunity to name the former library after Saint Anne. Its formal designation is the Saint Anne’s Family Center.

In considering names and different kinds of designations lots of options were on the table.

Is it a hall? A chapel? A meeting room? Yes.

The hope is that it becomes a center for all sorts of activity ranging from formation to meetings to worship to hospitality to receptions and more. It is designed to be a multifunctional hub for parish life.

Moreover, it is designed to be a place where multiple generations come together in different ways. It is at a crossroads right outside of our worship space, at the fish pond garden (the home for so many childhood memories), and by the Murphey Gallery where we welcome and host activities of all sorts.

Saint Anne is the patron saint of grandmothers. Her role in our faith is a powerful one when we consider the life of Mary and Jesus.

There’s a wonderful statue of her at Saint Anne’s Church in Jerusalem where she holds Mary in her lap. In her other hand she points Mary toward a scroll. She is teaching Mary some verses from the Book of Deuteronomy, so important in Judaism: Shema’ Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Dt 6:4-5)

Mary would have done the same with Jesus. She would have taught him to pray even as she lived out in every way the charge to love the Lord with all her heart, soul, and might. The grandmother of Jesus shaped his faith, his prayers, and his life by teaching Mary, and thus she shapes ours, too.

This is the powerful role grandmothers and grandfathers play in the life of faith we nurture here. They are guardians, teachers, role models, nurturers, and so much more. They teach us to love God with all that we are.

So this recognition of the role of grandmothers in our faith life sits at the center of our common life together. We lift up the name of Saint Anne as a way to lift up the special gifts we recognize in our elders, and to thank them for all the ways they shape us—and teach us how to shape those who follow us.

Many of you have heard me tell stories of my grandmother and her faith. The call I felt to find some way to honor Anne here came about in a profound moment.

When I visited Saint Anne’s Church in Jerusalem and looked at that statue I mentioned earlier, a group from Germany happened to be in the church. The acoustics are famously good so many groups will take the chance to sing. As I prayed and examined that statue, the group from halfway across the globe began to sing the Ave Maria my grandmother sang so often when I was a child.

A coincidence? Perhaps. But so often the movement of the Holy Spirit is simply coincidence for which we offer thanks to God.

I give thanks to God not just for that holy coincidence but for the role of my own grandmother in my faith formation and for the grandmothers here now, here long ago, and those yet to come. They teach us to love the Lord with all our heart, and so we name this new old space Saint Anne’s in gratitude.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert