Sunday 10 March 2013 , the 4th Sunday (Laetare) in Lent is commemorated as Mothering Sunday or Mothers Day (a later addition)
Mothering Sunday orignates from the 16th century when Christian people returned to their mother church. the principal definition of a mother church in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is ” The Church, esp. the Roman Catholic Church is considered as a ‘mother ‘in its functions of nourishing and protecting the believer”. Another definition is of a church (as a parish church) which has responsibility for or oversight of another sometimes smaller church, chapel etc.
This was either a large local church, or more often the nearest Cathedral. Those who attended the main church were commonly said to have gone “a-mothering”, although whether this preceded the term Mothering Sunday is unclear. In later times, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother church, usually with their own mothers/parents and other family members. It was often the only time that whole families could gather together, since on other days they were prevented by their working hours. Children who were also servants were also given a day off on that date so they could visit their families (or, originally, return to their “mother” church). The children would pick wild flowers along the way to place in the church or give to their mothers. Eventually, the religious tradition evolved into the Mothering Sunday secular tradition of giving gifts to mothers.
At church services flowers are distributed to mothers.
By the 1920s the custom of keeping Mothering Sunday had tended to lapsed in UK and Europe. In 1914, inspired by Anna Jarvis in the United States and Constance Penswick Smith, who was a daughter of athe vicar of Coddington, England, created the Mothering Sunday Movement. In 1921 she wrote a book asking for the revival of the festival and there is a memorial in Coddington’s church. Its widescale revival was through the influence of American and Canadian soldiers serving abroad during World War II; the traditions of Mothering Sunday, still practised by the Church of England (CoE)
and Church of Ireland were merged with the newly-imported traditions and celebrated in the wider Catholic and secular society.
As in the US, UK-based merchants saw the commercial opportunity and relentlessly promoted it in the UK; by the 1950s it was celebrated across all the UK.
People from Ireland and the UK started celebrating Mother’s Day, on the same day that Mothering Sunday on the fourth Sunday in Lent. The two celebrations have now been mixed up,merged and many people think that they are one of the same. Mothers Day is celebrated in US and other countries in May.
Mothering Sunday church service