HOMILY FOR THE MEMORIA OF SS JOACHIM AND ANNE
26th JULY 2018
Welcome
We welcome to Mass today, among our other visitors, His Eminence Juan José Omella, Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona and a good number of his priests, who are visiting us in friendship today and we thank them for the witness they give to us and the honour that they do us.
We celebrate today the memoria of SS Joachim and Anne the parents of Our Lady.
Readings:
First Reading: Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13
Psalm: 36.6-11
Gospel: Matthew 13.10-17
Homily
Israel is meant to be married to the Lord, but as Jeremiah says in the first reading, she turns out to be a faithless bride and in the Gospel Jesus quotes from Isaiah that the heart of this nation has grown coarse, their ears dull of hearing and their eyes are tight shut.
It is against this background of infidelity that we understand the beauty of today’s celebration of St Joachim and St Anne, the parents of Our Lady. For from their marital fidelity there springs the fruit of our salvation, Mary and her divine Son our Saviour.
They, Joachim and Anne, stand for a faithful remnant, the poor and little ones, who are faithful to the Lord, who listen to his Word and who look for him with great longing. And their fidelity has its reward, which is also offered to us. Our eyes may see and our ears hear, as did theirs, what Isaiah and Jeremiah so longed to see and hear. Let us who make our pilgrim way rejoice in the fulfilment of God’s great promise to us and may we journey on in fidelity to the Lord.