Advent has long been defined by prophecy and promise, but too often, the voices of its hidden matriarchs are left on the margins. Traditionally, attention gravitates toward the prophetic voice of John the Baptist and the eschatological fulfilment in the Christ Child. Yet the peripheries of these texts reveal a triad of female figures – Elizabeth, Anna the prophetess, and St Anne (the mother of Mary) – whose theological significance is often overlooked or confined to the devotional realm. We can take a fresh approach to Advent theology that centres on these three remarkable women, whose stories have been sidelined. This reorientation forms a matriarchal framework that honours their maternal roles not as passive but as active expressions of faith and courage.  

When examined through historical-critical exegesis and apocryphal traditions, these women emerge not as footnotes to the Incarnation, but as witnesses to God’s transforming righteousness from the peripheries. Elizabeth, from the priestly lineage of Aaron (Luke 1:5), defies expectations through her late-in-life pregnancy, embodying divine reversal. Anna, the elderly widow and prophet in the Temple (Luke 2:36-38), belongs to the world of Second Temple piety, signifying a priestly-adjacent vocation. St Anne, remembered through the Protoevangelium of James, stands in the Church’s memory as a quiet witness to generational faith. Her unseen maternal labour shaped Marian devotion and reveals how God works through lives often overlooked. Each woman represents a form of matriarchal praxis, a theological mode of presence and action that draws from feminist biblical theology while resisting ecclesial marginalisation. Their lives on the edges of the biblical story do not reflect weakness but reveal a strength that resists injustice and nurtures hope in often unnoticed ways.

This matriarchal praxis critiques patriarchal genealogies and aligns with the retrieval of silenced voices in Scripture and tradition.  The wisdom and fidelity of older women, like Elizabeth, Anna, and St Anne, are not ancillary to the Gospel story but integral to it. Pope Francis reminded us in his Homily at the Shrine of Sainte Anne de Beaupré, Canada (2022), of the role God gave to women in the plan of salvation.  This remembrance also reflects key Catholic Social Teaching principles, including the inherent dignity of the person and the preferential option for the poor, as articulated in Evangelii Gaudium and the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. By recovering Elizabeth, Anna, and St Anne in their historical and ecclesial contexts, Advent can be reimagined as a space of maternal witness and intergenerational solidarity, connecting the faith of the past with the hope of the future. 

This is relevant not only to Christian imagination but also to contemporary ethical crises around gender and visibility.  These three women offer a counter-narrative to Advent as a season of passive waiting or sentimental reflection. Their fidelity to divine promise is not abstract but enacted in their bodies and speech. They exemplify what Gustavo Gutiérrez called ‘active waiting’, a disposition of alertness to God’s justice breaking into history through the least expected. In contemporary contexts, their witness invites fresh theological interrogation of maternal vulnerability and power. Elizabeth’s solidarity with Mary evokes the mutual support networks among women. Anna’s vigils recall the moral courage of women who remain in contested religious or civic spaces. St Anne’s hiddenness affirms the theological significance of unacknowledged labour.

Such a retrieval of Elizabeth, Anna, and St Anne is not a sentimental indulgence.  It is a theological necessity for a Church seeking to respond to the signs of the times. Their stories remind us that salvation history is co-authored by women whose bodies and voices bear witness to God’s grace. In reclaiming these figures, contemporary theology widens the interpretive table, ensuring that the Church’s memory is more complete, and its hope more embodied. In remembering these women, we begin to see how grace unfolds not only in grand events but in the moments of daily life. My next reflection begins with Elizabeth, whose encounter with Mary transforms an ordinary household into a place of revelation. Through her, we see how divine promise takes flesh within the intimacy of human relationships.