Saints Joachim and Anne: the power of prayer

Prayer changes when you’ve been praying the same thing for years. In the beginning, my prayers for a child were confident and expectant. I assumed God would answer quickly. Now it’s been seven years. That’s 2,555 days of waking up with the same prayer on my heart and 84 months of hope rising and falling. As the months turned to years, my prayers became wrestling matches, desperate pleas, and sometimes wordless groans.

The prayer that spans decades

According to tradition, Joachim and Anne prayed for a child for 20 to 50 years. Let that sink in. Not 20 months, but 20 to 50 years of bringing the same petition before God. They continued to pray every morning and evening through countless feast days and ordinary days.

I try to imagine their prayer life evolving over decades. Did their words change? Did they sometimes run out of things to say? Were there seasons when they could barely form the words, when prayer consisted of simply showing up before God in their brokenness?

The Protoevangelium of James (second-century apocryphal writing) gives us a glimpse of their anguish. When Joachim’s offering was rejected at the temple because of his childlessness, he went to the desert and fasted for 40 days and nights, saying, “I will not go down either to eat or drink, until the Lord my God shall look upon me, but prayer shall be my meat and drink” (1:7). This was a man so devastated he couldn't face his wife, choosing instead to make prayer his only sustenance.

We are also shown Anne’s prayer beneath the laurel tree. Her prayer was raw and honest, comparing herself to the birds who had young while she remained barren. This wasn’t a polite, sanitized prayer. This was the prayer of someone who had exhausted all pretense and was bringing her whole wounded self before God.

When prayer feels like shouting into the void

There’s a loneliness that comes with long-term intercessory prayer. Family and friends who initially promised to pray with you gradually forget. The prayer requests that once felt urgent become background noise. You wonder if even God has stopped listening.

I imagine Joachim in the temple, offering his sacrifices and maintaining his devotion even as others whispered about his childlessness being a sign of divine disfavor. He continued to worship, believed in God’s goodness, and persisted in prayer despite public shame. He didn’t pray only when he felt God’s presence. He prayed through the silence. I imagine Anne’s private moments of grief, wondering if her prayers reached heaven, but still returning to that place of prayer beneath her laurel tree.

This is the most challenging aspect of their story for me. How do you maintain a vibrant prayer life when God seems silent? How do you keep speaking to God, who appears to have put you on hold?

Prayer as a relationship

I have learned from Joachim and Anne that persistent prayer changes us more than it changes our circumstances. Their decades of prayer reveal that prayer is a relationship with God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that prayer is a living relationship between the children of God with their Father, who is good beyond measure (CCC 2565). Like any relationship, it requires showing up in all seasons in joy and sorrow, hope and despair, certainty and doubt. Their faithfulness wasn’t measured by how they felt on any given day, but by their commitment to remaining in conversation with God even through silence when the conversation felt one-sided.

After seven years of praying for a child, I’ve discovered that some of my most profound moments with God have come when I’ve run out of words. Like old friends who can sit together without speaking, I’m learning to simply be in God’s presence with my longing. Joachim and Anne must have experienced this too. After decades, they didn’t have new words to voice their feelings and desires, but they continued to show up, to be present, and maintain their relationship with God.

The novena to St. Anne includes this raw admission: "It hurts to feel as though God has forgotten me in my waiting." This prayer has become my lifeline on difficult days. It acknowledges the pain while still choosing to engage with God. It's honest about the struggle while maintaining connection. Relationships require the ability to express hurt, disappointment, and even anger while staying engaged rather than walking away.

Their prayer life reminds me of a long marriage, where love is proven not in the honeymoon phase but in daily commitment when feelings fade. Some days, they prayed from devotion, others from habit or sheer stubbornness. All of it mattered. All of it was building something deeper than answered requests, a relationship with God, who saw their pain and held their tears.

Through their example, I am learning that prayer is less about changing God’s mind and more about aligning our hearts with His. It’s about creating space for God to work in us even when He seems silent. Each prayer, moment of presence, and choice to return to the sacred place of prayer deepens a relationship that will sustain us through whatever comes, answered or unanswered prayers.

The mystery of unanswered prayer

Perhaps the most valuable lesson from Joachim and Anne is that unanswered prayer doesn’t mean unheard prayer. Their decades of petition were all part of God’s larger plan. Mary had to be born at the right moment for God’s plan to unfold and Christ to be born. This doesn’t make the waiting easier, but reframes it. What if our unanswered prayers are not neglect but divine timing? What if persistent prayer is shaping us for purposes we cannot see?

The novena to St. Anne helps me through times of doubt when prayers go unanswered: “Pray that God will give me the strength to establish the certainty in my mind that He does love me, and that He does have a special plan for me.” Some days, I can't muster that certainty alone. But I can borrow the faith of those who've prayed before me and lean on the intercession of saints who understand.

The power of persistent prayer

Saints Joachim and Anne teach us that the power of prayer isn’t in its persuasion but in its persistence. They show us that faith isn’t the absence of doubt but the choice to keep praying through it. Their story reminds us that God’s timeline rarely matches ours, but that doesn’t mean He isn’t working.

When the angel of the Lord came to Anne, he said, “the Lord has heard your prayer” (4:1). Notice that the Lord heard her prayer, singular, not plural, as if all those decades of petition had become one continuous prayer ascending to heaven.

Joachim and Anne testify that persistent prayer is never wasted for those of us waiting. Every prayer offered, every moment spent in God’s presence, and every choice to trust through silence are building something eternal, even when we cannot see it.