anna anezin

Anna Anezin Gives Life over to Faith

By Gretchen R. Crowe
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the Issue of 2/1/07)

Adorned in religious icons, Anna Anezin’s Burke house, her home for the past 27 years, reflects the faith-filled life of its 80-year-old owner. A petite woman with gray hair, Anezin wears a crucifix and miraculous medal around her neck. For what she lacks in stature — “I used to be 5’ 2” but I think I shrunk,” she said — she more than makes up for in her love for God and for the Church.
Anezin was born on Sept. 17, 1926, in Buck Mountain, Pa., a community so small it was referred to as a “patch.” Her father, Andrew, who came to the United States from the former-Slovakia and worked in the coal mines, married her mother, Mary, and the couple had four children: Anne, Mary, George and Anna.
There was little money to go around, so in her youth, Anezin begged for food at the Red Cross, the rectory and the fire house. She went to the American Legion for clothes. The family’s poverty, however, didn’t affect its love for, or trust in, God.
“I had a rough life, really,” Anezin said. But “though we were poor, our faith was strong.”
At age 11, she started working Friday nights, Saturdays and summers at a dry cleaning and clothing store. Although the pay was minimal, it provided at least a steady income. Anezin excelled in school, but could not afford to go to college.
“I used to love school,” she said. “You know I just wanted to get out of poverty.”
Left with only 27 cents after high school graduation, Anezin borrowed money from a friend to go to Philadelphia to find work. She was hired on the spot at a country club, where she met her husband, French chef Jean-Paul Anezin. The couple moved to Washington in the mid-1940s, where Jean-Paul accepted a job as a chef at the World Bank, and they were married a short while later at St. Matthew’s Cathedral.
Residents of Oxon Hill, Md., the Anezin family — which soon included son Jacques and daughter Denise — spent more than three decades as members of St. Thomas More Church in southeast Washington.
Every morning, using a set of keys that the priest had given her, Anezin opened the church and set the altar for Mass. She cantored regularly at parish Masses, as well as for special occasions at the Franciscan Monastery in Washington. In 1967, Anezin was received into the monastery as a lay religious under the name Mary Frances. She professed her vows two years later on Oct. 19, 1969.
Her contact with higher-ups, especially religious, is impressive: she sang for Washington Cardinal William Baum; she was at the National Mall when Pope John Paul celebrated Mass in 1979; she met former French President Charles de Gaulle at the French Embassy in Washington; and she met Mother Teresa in the early 1980s, while volunteering at the Queen of Peace, Missionaries of Charity shelter and soup kitchen in southeast Washington.
“We were just serving people when she came. I didn’t know she was going to be there that day,” Anezin said. “I got down on my knees by her two feet and I kissed her two feet, and she picked me up and she said, ‘Why did you do that?’ And I said, ‘Dear sister, I had to kiss the feet that walk in the footsteps of Jesus.’”
Mother Teresa then autographed her prayer book, which Anezin keeps well preserved.
“That was a surprise, really a surprise,” she said. “That was special to me.”
As violence in their Oxon Hill neighborhood increased in the late 1970s, the Anezins were forced to move to Virginia.
“We didn’t want to go, but we had no choice,” she said. “It was real sad because Washington in our area was real nice and it just went down.”
Anezin began singing at Nativity Church in Burke, and Denise played the organ. They do the same now at the new St. Raymond of Penafort Church in Springfield, where they are both parishioners.
Jacques lives in Herndon with his wife, Linda, and three children, and the family belongs to St. John Neumann Parish in Reston.
In March 1994, Anezin was recognized by the Arlington Diocese Council for Catholic Women as an “outstanding woman of the diocese” for her “contributions to both her parish and community.” A former member of the Legion of Mary, she makes rosaries in her spare time.
Jean-Paul died in 1997 of congestive heart failure after 50 years of marriage. Anezin said one of her fondest memories of him was when he gave her a cooking lesson.
“I’ll never forget when he tried to teach me,” she said. “I never laughed so much. It’s too complicated. I couldn’t do it.”
Denise, a computer programmer for Northrop Grumman, said that it was her mother’s example of strength during times of trial, such as the deaths of her husband and siblings, which showed her what a powerful ally faith could be.
“I think my faith is the way it is because I’ve watched her,” Denise said. No matter what the hardships of her mother’s life, she always fell back on her faith. “You kind of watch what your parents do and what your parents say, and you grow in your faith by watching your parents go through trial periods. I really believe that her faith is strong and I hope mine is as strong as hers is.”
Anezin demonstrates her strong love of “Holy Mother Church” through a daily regimen of praying the rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Liturgy of the Hours and the Stations of the Cross. She attends daily Mass when she is able, and when she isn’t, she tunes in on EWTN, whose initial broadcast in Northern Virginia in 1987 was due in large part to her letter-writing campaigns and petitions.
Anezin, in turn, attributes her strong faith to her parents and the difficult life that they led.
“If Jesus, Mary and Joseph can do it, then we can do it, too,” Anezin said. “In a way I think poverty maybe is good because it brings you closer to God.”
Her life is her faith in God, Anezin said.
“That’s what keeps me going,” she said. “He’s here in good times and He’s here in bad times. He just takes over and I just trust in Him. I do, I trust in Him.”

Gretchen R. Crowe can be reached at gcrowe@catholicherald.com.