The St Anne Sodality in Brief

(Left) St Anne Sodality AGM in Umzimkulu. (Right) St Anne’s Sodality in Polokwane.
The St Anne Sodality was founded in 1850 in Québec, Canada, by Oblate Father Jean-Baptiste Honorat. It was brought to Southern Africa in 1934, via Lesotho, by Bishop Joseph Cyprian Bonhomme OMI. Its motto is to “serve the family, the Church and the community”.
In South Africa today, the sodality is a strong support group for its members and a powerful resource for their parishes in over 20 dioceses. Members — dressed in their familiar uniform of a purple top, black skirt and beret — meet bi-monthly for Mass, discussion, report-backs and prayers. Their social involvement includes visiting young mothers, lapsed Catholics and the bereaved, as well as attending to any other needs made known to them by their parish priests.
Based on the virtues of St Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the following are included in the intentions of the sodality: to foster and encourage vocations to the religious life among children; to be exemplary to Christian women and models of married women and mothers; to comfort those in sorrow, and to love and care for the poor.
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