Holy Prophetess Anna, Mother of the Prophet Samuel (1100 Before the Nativity of Christ)

The holy Prophetess Anna, mother of the Prophet Samuel, was the wife of Elkanah, who lived on Mount Ephraim. For a long time the Lord’s chosen woman was not granted a child. Elkanah took a second wife, Peninnah, who, unlike Anna, proved fruitful. The blessed Anna grieved terribly and fervently besought God to grant her a child.

Every year Elkanah went up with his whole household “to the temple of the Lord” to worship and to offer sacrifice to God. Once, during such a journey, Anna, worn away with grief, fell down before the tabernacle, and “in bitterness of heart prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore, and vowed: O Adonai Lord, Eloi Sabaoth, if Thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of Thine handmaid, and remember me, and give me a man child, then I will give him before Thee unto the day of his death; and he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, and there shall no iron come upon his head”. The blessed mother prayed in her heart: she moved her lips, but her voice was not heard, and so Eli the priest thought she was drunk, reproached her for her unseemly behaviour and ordered her to leave the temple. Anna answered humbly: “Count not thine handmaid among the unworthy daughters, for by much sorrow and faintness of affliction have I been wasted away until now.” When he heard of the woman’s pain, Eli blessed her, asked the Lord to fulfil her request, and sent her away in peace. Anna rejoiced, comfort was poured into her soul, and very soon she conceived. The Lord’s handmaid named the longed-for son Samuel (see the reading for 20 August), which means “asked of the Lord”. When Samuel was weaned, Anna and Elkanah offered rich gifts to the Lord, and, as they had vowed, left their son in the temple. Eli the priest blessed the righteous woman, and she, rejoicing, offered to the Lord a hymn of thanksgiving, in which a thousand years before the Nativity of Christ she prophesied the Saviour’s becoming man. This hymn is still sung in church at divine services today. After this Anna had three more sons and three daughters, lived to a deep old age, and committed her soul to the Lord in peace.

The righteous Anna is told of in the First Book of Kings (1:1–28; 2:1–11).