St. Anne

Anne is known from the second-century Protoevangelium of James as the mother of the Virgin Mary and wife of Joachim. The tradition tells of a long and painful childlessness, of prayers made in grief, and of a child given late and dedicated to God.

Devotion to her spread early in the East and reached the West by the eighth century. She is the great patron of grandparents, of mothers, of women in labour, and of those who wait a long time for something they have prayed for.

Major shrines at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec and Sainte-Anne-d''Auray in Brittany still draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims a year.