She had already been long considered the patron saint of Detroit by many, the very first parish, Ste. Anne de Detroit, having been named for her when the city’s founders began building a chapel on her feast day – July 26, 1701 – just two days after their arrival.
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and the 51 others who accompanied him had come from Quebec, where St. Anne was already invoked as patroness. Many of them hailed originally from Normandy or other parts of northern France, where devotion to her was very strong, says Fr. Daniel Trapp, pastor of St. Augustine & St. Monica Parish, Detroit, and a member of the Sacred Heart Major Seminary faculty.
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 had embraced during their time in the Holy Land.
Before that time, devotion to St. Anne (from the Hebrew Hannah, meaning “grace”) was primarily to be found in the Eastern Church, dating from as early as the fourth century.
Neither she nor her husband, St. Joachim, are named in Scripture. Their names first appear in writing in the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal gospel written about 145 A.D. that is not accepted as authentic by the Catholic Church.
But that is not to say their names had not been part of an existing oral tradition. “Just because it is uncanonical doesn’t mean everything in it is false,” Fr. Trapp says.
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 St. Anne grew in Europe, however, some people began to claim to know even more of her story, and there grew up a spurious tradition that Mary had also, like Jesus, been the result of a virgin birth.
The Church had to intervene to correct this situation, resulting in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception – that Mary was conceived through normal sexual intercourse, but without sin.
Devotion to St. Anne also became strong in Germany, and was the focus of strong opposition by Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant Reformation.
Pope Gregory XIII extended observance of her feast day to the Universal Church in 1584.
Today, many Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican (or Episcopalian) churches will be found named for her.
