The Names of Mary's Parents

The feast of St. Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is celebrated on the 26th of July. Mary’s parents are not named in the Bible, so where do we get their names?

We get information on Mary’s birth and early years from a book called the Protoevangelium of James. It is purely legend and written sometime in the 3rd century. However, a lot of the legendary information from that book has come into the lore of Catholicism including the names of Mary’s parents. According to the Protoevangelium, Joachim is an exceedingly rich man, but he and his wife cannot have children. That is, until suddenly an angel appears to Anne, and Mary is born. Mary is raised not by her parents, but in the Temple, where she is fed by angels, so she is not corrupted by human beings. At age 12 a suitable spouse is sought for Mary and Joseph, an old man with children from an earlier marriage, miraculously has a dove land on his head to signal that Mary should be his spouse. Obviously, much of this is meant to be symbolic, but it explains why we commonly believe Mary is so very young, why we think Joseph is old, and how we get the names of Mary’s parents. And, if you want to read the Protoevangelium you can find it online, just remember it is symbolic legend.