From: RMyers8113@aol.com 
Subject: origin of Yoachum name 
Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 10:09:11 EDT


Yoachum is certainly an ancient name. I'm not a religious scholar, but I 
suppose the name must have been Hebrew or Arameic. According to several 
religious texts ultimately rejected for inclusion in the modern Bible, 
Joachim and Anne are named as the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the 
mother of Christ. In the Catholic Church, Joachim and Ann have been sainted. 
The following is a passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia online. You should 
know that "J" is pronounced like a "Y". A friend from Germany told me that 
Yoachum or Joachim has been a fairly common first name in Germany, but is 
rarely used as a last name. 

"St. Joachim"

"Joachim (whose name means Yahweh prepares), was the father of the Blessed 
Virgin Mary. If we were to obey the warning of St. Peter Damian, we should 
consider it a blameable and needless curiosity to inquire about those things 
that the Evangelists did not deem it advisable to relate, and, in particular, 
about the parents of the Blessed Virgin (Serm. iii de Nativ. B.M.V.). 
Tradition nevertheless, grounded on very old testimonies, very early hailed 
Saints Joachim and Anne as the father and mother of the Mother of God. True, 
this tradition seems to rest ultimately on the so-called "Gospel of James", 
the "Gospel of the Nativity of the Blessed Mary", and the Pseudo-Matthew, or 
"Book of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of the Childhood of the 
Saviour"; and this origin is likely to rouse well-founded suspicions. It 
should be borne in mind, however, that the apocryphal character of these 
writings, that is to say, their rejection from the canon, and their 
ungenuineness do not imply that no heed whatever should be taken of some of 
their assertions; side by side, indeed, with unwarranted and legendary facts, 
they contain some historical data borrowed from reliable traditions or 
documents; and difficult though it is to distinguish in them the wheat from 
the tares, it would be unwise and uncritical indiscriminately to reject the 
whole. Some commentators, who believe that the genealogy given by St. Luke is 
that of the Blessed Virgin, find the mention of Joachim in Heli (Luke, iii, 
23; Eliachim, i.e. Jeho-achim), and explain that Joseph had, in the eyes of 
the law, become by his marriage the son of Joachim. That such is the purpose 
and the meaning of the Evangelist is very doubtful, and so is the 
identification proposed between the two names Heli and Joachim. Neither can 
it be asserted with certainty, in spite of the authority of the Bollandists, 
that Joachim was Heli's son and Joseph's brother; nor, as is sometimes 
affirmed, from sources of very doubtful value, that he had large possessions 
in herds and flocks. Much more interesting are the beautiful lines in which 
the "Gospel of James" describes how, in their old age, Joachim and Anne 
received the reward of their prayers to obtain issue. Tradition has it that 
the parents of the Blessed Virgin, who, apparently, first lived in Galilee, 
came later on to settle in Jerusalem; there the Blessed Virgin was born and 
reared; there also they died and were buried. A church, known at various 
epochs as St. Mary, St. Mary ubi nata est, St. Mary in Probatica, Holy 
Probatica, St. Anne, was built during the fourth century, possibly by St. 
Helena, on the site of the house of St. Joachim and St. Anne, and their tombs 
were there honoured until the close of the ninth century, when the church was 
converted into a Moslem school. The crypt which formerly contained the holy 
tombs was rediscovered on 18 March, 1889. St. Joachim was honoured very early 
by the Greeks, who celebrate his feast on the day following the Blessed 
Virgin's birthday; the Latins were slow to admit it to their calendar, where 
it found place sometimes on 16 Sept. and sometimes on 9 Dec. Assigned by 
Julius II to 20 March, the solemnity was suppressed some fifty years later, 
restored by Gregory XV (1622), fixed by Clement XII (1738) on the Sunday 
after the Assumption, and finally raised to the rank of double of the second 
class by Leo XIII (1 Aug., 1879). CHARLES L. SOUVAY 
Transcribed by Paul T. Crowley 
In Memoriam, Mr. Francis Crowley & Mr. Francis McHugh"