Holy Family Church on St. Thomas celebrated its 60th annual Our Lady of Cassi Hill pilgrimage with a procession, Mass, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and benediction on August 12. Pictured above, parishioners from all the parishes on St. Thomas and St. John recited the rosary in a procession from Four Winds Plaza to the Our Lady of Cassi Hill Shrine.
Ss. Joachim and Ann are revered as the parents of the Blessed Mother. Devotion to these two saints started around the sixth century in the East. By the tenth century, this devotion had spread to most parts of the West.
There is little information known about the lives of Joachim and Ann. Most of the information is inferred from the life of Mary and how she acted. How Mary dealt with crisis and how she cared for Elizabeth when she was pregnant give clues to the influence of her parents.
St. Anne is patron of mothers, grandmothers, homemakers and Canada, St. Joachim is patron of grandfathers. Their feast day is July 26.
St. Anne Chapel on St. Thomas celebrated the feast of Ss. Joachim and Anne on July 28 with a procession from the chapel to the nearby harbor for the annual blessing of the boats and then back to the chapel, reciting the rosary along the way.
Pictured above, Fr. Charles Crespo, Parochial Vicar at Ss. Peter and Paul Cathedral, sprinkled holy water on the boats docked in the harbor while the choir sang a Marian hymn in French.
St. Ann Church on St. Croix celebrated the feast of Ss. Joachim and Ann with three nights of conferences on July 24-26 and a patronal Mass on July 29.
Fr. Michael Onyekuru (pictured above) of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Georgia, was the guest speaker. Fr Onyekuru received his doctorate in Canon Law from the Angelicum in Rome and currently serves on Atlanta's Archdiocesan Tribunal.