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Mothering Sunday
Posted by Janet Mendenhall on May 03, 2010 at 11:51 am
The act of honoring motherhood is as old as time itself. Official celebrations are almost as ancient.
The ever-partying Greeks and Romans celebrated in springtime, with festivals honoring Rhea and Cybele, the mother of their gods.
The early Christians, perhaps not as festively, celebrated in springtime, a day to honor Mary, the mother of God.
The Europeans first officially honored the “Mother Church” on the fourth Sunday of Lent, but it was later broadened to include actual mortal mothers, and became known as Mothering Sunday. Servants and laborers were given the day to return to their homes and visit their mothers — and granted a reprieve from the fasting of Lent to enjoy a family feast. (Can you imagine at last going home to mom’s cooking and having to fast?)
Mothering Sunday was abandoned by the early American settlers, perhaps, historians say, because there simply wasn’t time. It could also have been a reflection of the Puritans’ general distaste for festivities.
The day was resurrected in the heart of Julia Ward Howe, broken by the devastation of the Civil War. Her proposition was a national celebration of peace and motherhood, appealing to the power of each mother’s love to bind together and overcome the futility of their sons’ deaths. She wrote in 1870, “We women of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure them.”
Her dream wasn’t immediately successful, but as time marched on, it resurfaced and was reshaped. Eventually, in 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed Mother’s Day into national observance on the second Sunday of each May.
I like the Europeans’ name, Mothering Sunday. It honors the essence of mothering that exists not only in mothers, but in many women whom the actual title “mother” has eluded: unconditional love, real comfort, wise instruction and peace.
I like Howe’s connection of peace and mothering. Peace is found in the mother’s presence — her lap, under her arm, or at her side. God’s writers often use this imagery to remind us of His love for His people. I like this picture in Isaiah 66, “I will extend peace to her like a river…you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you…”
I like Christian Homes’ connection of peace and mothering: Birth mothers being mothered into peace by their mothers and caseworkers and adoptive mothers; adoptive mothers being mothered into peace by their mothers and caseworkers and birth mothers.
And all of us experiencing the perfect peace of the One Isaiah says nurtures and comforts and loves us — just like our mothers have.
Happy Mothering Sunday. May the peace of God be with you.
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Thank you for this article - I like that we’re all mothering each other!
- Robin E.
I love, love, love your blog! I love the way you write your articles by the way, you’ve done an excellent job with your website!
Ciao!
