Liturgical Customs in Honor of St. Joachim, Father of the Mother of God

This is adapted with permission from Restoring Lost Customs of Christendom published by Our Lady of Victory Press

August 16th in the traditional Roman calendar is the Feast of St. Joachim, Father of the Blessed Virgin Mary and grandfather according to the flesh of Our Lord Jesus Christ. While the modern calendar joins St. Joachim to his spouse, St. Anne, on July 26th, the traditional calendar wisely gives each of the parents of Our Lady a separate feast. St. Anne is honored on July 26th, while St. Joachim is honored on August 16th, immediately after the Assumption of his daughter.

This placement is especially beautiful. Before the suppression of nearly all the Church's octaves in 1955, August 16th fell within the Octave of the Assumption. Thus, immediately after Holy Mother Church celebrated Mary taken body and soul into Heaven, she turned toward the father whom Divine Providence had chosen to raise her. In fact, the saints occurring during the old Assumption Octave have fittingly been described as the comites Mariae, the “companions of Mary,” with St. Joachim standing first among them on August 16th.

There is an additional peculiarity this year. In 2026, August 16th falls on the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost. Under the 1962 calendar, the Sunday is celebrated and St. Joachim is commemorated. Nevertheless, August 16th remains his traditional feast day and is therefore an entirely appropriate day for the faithful to honor him privately and in the Catholic home.

What We Know of St. Joachim

As with St. Anne, St. Joachim is not named in Sacred Scripture. Much of what Christian tradition has preserved concerning the parents of Our Lady comes from the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal work dating to the second century. It is not inspired Scripture, and its individual historical details are therefore not articles of Faith. Nevertheless, it profoundly influenced Christian devotion, art, and the traditional accounts surrounding the early life of the Blessed Virgin.

The work presents Joachim as a pious man who gave generously both to God and to the poor. Yet he and Anne remained childless. After he was reproached because of his childlessness, Joachim withdrew into the wilderness where he fasted for forty days and prayed to God. An angel eventually announced that his prayers had been heard. Anne would conceive the child whom we know as the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

Later, when Mary was still a little girl, Joachim participated in fulfilling the vow by which she was consecrated to God. The account describes him arranging for young virgins carrying lamps to accompany Mary to the Temple when she was three years old. Thus, the traditional portrait of Joachim is not merely that of a grandfather. He is a father who understood that his child belonged first to God.

That alone makes him a saint desperately needed by fathers today.

The Wandering Feast of St. Joachim

The history of St. Joachim's feast is itself noteworthy because, wherever it was placed, Catholics repeatedly sought to keep him liturgically close to his daughter.

The Greeks honored him very early on the day following Our Lady's Nativity. In the West his feast appeared at different times on September 16th, after the Octave of Mary's Nativity, and on December 9th, immediately after the Immaculate Conception. Pope Julius II assigned his feast to March 20th, the day after St. Joseph, thereby placing Mary's father beside Mary's husband. After the feast disappeared from the Roman calendar during the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory XV restored it in 1622. Pope Clement XII moved it in 1738 to the Sunday after the Assumption, and Pope Leo XIII elevated it to the rank of Double of the Second Class in 1879.

Finally, following the reforms of St. Pius X, the feast was fixed on August 16th. Once again, St. Joachim was placed beside his daughter, this time immediately following her glorious Assumption.

This close association should itself shape our observance of St. Joachim's Day. August 16th should not feel detached from Assumption Day. Continue the celebration of Our Lady. Keep flowers or herbs blessed on the Assumption displayed in the home. Continue Marian prayers. And then thank Almighty God for the father He chose for the woman who would become the Mother of God.

Give Alms in Honor of St. Joachim

One of the most specifically Joachim-centered customs we can recover is almsgiving.

The Mass itself points us in this direction. The Introit and Gradual for St. Joachim employ Psalm 111 and praise the blessed man who fears the Lord and gives freely to the poor. This choice reflects the old tradition concerning Joachim's generosity and his abundant offerings to God. The traditional Mass therefore presents charity to the poor as one of the virtues through which we should contemplate him.

Accordingly, make August 16th an annual day of almsgiving. Give to a Catholic apostolate. Help a struggling Catholic family. Support a crisis pregnancy center, monastery, traditional parish, or worthy work of mercy. Fathers might especially involve their children by allowing them to choose some portion of the family's gift.

This is more than philanthropy. Joachim teaches fathers that the goods entrusted to a household are entrusted by God. The father of a family is therefore not merely an earner but a steward, responsible for teaching his children by example that material possessions must ultimately serve God and neighbor.

Fathers Should Pray to St. Joachim

St. Joachim has traditionally been invoked especially as a patron of fathers, grandfathers, grandparents, and families.

This makes August 16th an excellent occasion for fathers to examine their own responsibilities before God.

The great accomplishment of Joachim's fatherhood was not wealth, worldly success, or the social advancement of his child. His glory is that his daughter became holy. Obviously, no father can reproduce the singular grace bestowed upon Mary. But every Catholic father should desire above everything else that his children die in the state of grace and reach Heaven.

Older Catholic devotional books fittingly contained prayers addressed to St. Joachim specifically for fathers. One asks through his intercession that a father might influence his children toward holiness “by word and example.” That is precisely the responsibility modern fatherhood too often forgets.

On his feast, fathers should therefore pray for each of their children individually. Grandfathers should pray for each of their grandchildren. And children, whatever their age, should pray for their fathers and grandfathers, living or deceased.

Restore an Old Prayer to St. Joachim

Older Catholic prayer books also preserve a remarkably short invocation:

“St. Joachim, spouse of Anne, father of the Blessed Virgin, aid thy clients here on the way to salvation.”

Under the former discipline of indulgences, Pope St. Pius X enriched this invocation with an indulgence of 300 days in 1906.

It would be a fitting prayer to restore to Catholic households on August 16th. Say it after the family Rosary, after meals, or whenever passing an image of St. Joachim.

A novena to St. Joachim may likewise be made from August 7th through August 15th in preparation for his feast. This is especially appropriate for fathers and grandfathers, for married couples praying for children, and for those asking God for the conversion or perseverance of children and grandchildren. Traditional devotional collections preserve prayers specifically addressed to him for these intentions.

Imitate Joachim's Forty-Day Fast

There does not appear to have been a universal obligatory vigil fast attached specifically to St. Joachim's feast, so we should not invent one.

Nevertheless, fasting is inseparable from the traditional account of his life. Faced with sorrow and humiliation, Joachim did not turn to resentment or despair. He withdrew and fasted for forty days while imploring God's mercy. Only afterward came the angelic announcement that his prayer had been heard.

A voluntary act of penance on August 16th—or on the day before when practical—would therefore be thoroughly consonant with devotion to him. One might abstain from meat, omit a favorite food, or undertake some other modest fast and offer it for fathers who have abandoned their responsibilities, for children estranged from the Faith, or for married couples suffering from infertility.

Joachim reminds us that apparent silence from God is not an invitation to stop praying. His long period of childlessness preceded one of the greatest answers to prayer in human history.

Honor Fathers and Grandfathers

In the article on St. Anne's customs, I recommended using her feast as an occasion to honor one's grandparents. The same principle applies even more specifically to fathers and grandfathers on St. Joachim's Day.

If your father or grandfather is living, call him. Visit him if possible. Have dinner together. Ask him about family history or about those who came before him. Children should be taught that honoring one's ancestors is not sentimental nostalgia but flows naturally from the Fourth Commandment.

If your father or grandfather has died, arrange to have Mass offered for him or pray for the repose of his soul. Visit his grave if possible.

Grandfathers themselves should use the feast for an examination of conscience: What am I doing to transmit the Catholic Faith to my grandchildren? A Catholic grandfather should want to leave behind something infinitely more valuable than property, money, or family heirlooms. He should leave descendants who know the Catechism, receive the Sacraments, pray the Rosary, assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and understand that their final end is Heaven.

Make a Torta del Nonno

The St. Anne article recommended the Italian torta della nonna, literally “grandmother's cake,” as a fitting dessert for the feast of the grandmother of Our Lord. There is fortunately an obvious counterpart for St. Joachim: torta del nonno, or “grandfather's cake.”

This is not presented as an ancient liturgical custom specifically connected with St. Joachim. Rather, it is an excellent Catholic home custom that can naturally be attached to his feast. The Italian torta del nonno is a variation of torta della nonna, generally made with a cocoa shortcrust and chocolate pastry cream, often with almonds replacing the pine nuts used on the grandmother's version. It is associated particularly with Tuscany and Lazio.

Thus July 26th can have torta della nonna in honor of St. Anne, and August 16th can have torta del nonno in honor of St. Joachim.

Little customs like this matter. Children remember feast days when those feasts acquire smells, tastes, prayers, songs, stories, and family associations. Catholic culture is built precisely through such repeated practices.

Make a Pilgrimage in His Honor

Pilgrimage is another fitting observance. Tradition associates the home of Joachim and Anne in Jerusalem with the location on which the Church of St. Anne was later built, and devotion to the site extends far back into Christian history.

Those fortunate enough to be in Rome have an even more specifically Joachim-centered destination: San Gioacchino ai Prati di Castello, a church dedicated to St. Joachim not far from Castel Sant'Angelo.

Most Catholics, of course, cannot travel to Jerusalem or Rome for August 16th. But a local church, chapel, statue, or shrine dedicated to St. Joachim can become a miniature pilgrimage. Even visiting a church bearing his name while traveling during the year is a worthwhile way to cultivate devotion to this neglected patriarch.

St. Joachim and the Catholic Father

Perhaps the most important recovery connected with St. Joachim is not a particular recipe or devotion but a renewed Catholic understanding of fatherhood.

Joachim prayed. Joachim fasted. Joachim gave alms. Joachim remained faithful to his wife during their long sorrow. And when God finally entrusted him with a daughter, he understood that she ultimately belonged to God.

That is a model for every Catholic father.

The father must provide materially for his family, but his first concern must be their salvation. He must teach his children the Faith, take them to Mass, ensure that they receive the Sacraments, correct them when necessary, pray for them constantly, and above all give them an example worth imitating.

The world desperately needs such fathers. And Catholic families desperately need the intercession of the man whom Divine Providence chose to be father of the Immaculate Virgin and grandfather of the Incarnate Word.

So on August 16th, honor your father and grandfather. Pray for those who have died. Give alms. Undertake some voluntary penance. Pray the old invocation to St. Joachim. Have a torta del nonno. Continue the joy of the Assumption. And above all ask St. Joachim to obtain from God a restoration of truly Catholic fatherhood in our homes.

St. Joachim, Father of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us!