The statue of Saint Ann instructing Mary in the Ten Commandments was originally inside Saint Ann’s Church, which stood at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Gage Street until its demolition in 1970. The statue was then inside Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church until its closure in 2016.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us valuable guidance in how we might use this image to inspire our prayer. Let us recall that “what the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.” (487) That is, just as Jesus “advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man,” (Luke 2:52) so did Mary advance in knowledge of the Jewish Law and Prophets and in understanding of the covenant between God and Israel. She who was “preserved immune from all stain of original sin” by a “singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ” (491) nevertheless had to learn her Jewish faith under the tutelage of Saint Ann, her mother.

And what exactly did she learn in her studies? She must have learned about the important women of the Old Testament whose missions foreshadowed her own: Eve, Sarah, Hannah, Deborah, Ruth, Judith, Esther, and many others. Indeed, “after a long period of waiting, the times are fulfilled in Mary, the exalted Daughter of Sion, and the new plan of salvation is established.” (489)  Let us, therefore, study the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament and through the person of Jesus Christ, for “God, the inspirer and author of both Testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New.” (Dei Verbum 16)

The statue of Anne stands in the original position of the baptismal font. This explains why there are grapes painted on the wall behind him, which represent the fruitfulness of the sacramental life, which begins in Baptism.  

We thank parishioner Christine Cross for beautifully restoring the statue in 2020.