Mothers' Day and Beyond

How did you mark Mothers' Day this year?  Almost certainly, your celebrations would have been different from normal.  The corona-virus has meant that many people will have had to revise their plans, whether they were whatever had been the accepted norm for many years or arrangements made for something special this year.  Much had to be changed or totally abandoned almost at the last minute.

My intentions differed little from any other Sunday, and have remained that way since my mother died sixteen years ago.  But they, too, changed this year because there was no church service to attend.  Instead, thanks to technology - and in common with many other congregations across the country - we were able to participate in a service that was live-streamed on the internet.  I remember an occasion a few years before she died, when I collected my mother from her home and took her to church with me for the morning service.

That's a memory that leads me to remark about what the day is called.  'Mothers' Day' is a modern term that has undermined its original name, 'Mothering Sunday'.  It seems to have had its origins in early-modern times when services would be held on the fourth Sunday of Lent (sometimes known as 'Refreshment' Sunday) for which people would return to the church where they were baptised, or perhaps attend a special service in the cathedral or 'mother church' of a diocese.  This idea of the church caring like a mother for her members is wonderfully prefigured by Jesus in the days leading up to his arrest (Luke 13:34).

More recently, e.g. in the Victorian age, Mothering Sunday became an occasion when young adults who were 'in service' (i.e. household servants) were given a day off to visit their mother church.  This custom was thus perhaps the only time of the year when whole families could gather together, unimpeded by the conflicting demands of work.  As these elder children - some scarcely into teenage - walked through country lanes to their home villages (there was no other means of transport!), they would pick wild flowers to present to their mothers on arrival.  So the practice grew up of giving flowers or other gifts on that day.  What had started as a spiritual celebration of the mothering role of the church became re-focused on the earthly mother of the human family.

I have found it difficult in this last week or two to accept that the combination of my age and a long-standing medical condition requires me to relinquish my lifelong role of doing things, whether for myself or for other people. In its place comes a role of inactivity, bringing with it, as it does, the prospect of having to rely on others to do things for me.

As I see it, motherhood is a gradual transition of a similar kind, one that some mothers find difficult, others less so.  It is interesting to notice from the gospels how the roles and relationship between Mary and Jesus changed over his lifetime: Luke 2:7 (baby); Luke 2:43-51 (teenager); Luke 8:20 (teacher) and John 19:26-27 (provider).  It's good to be reminded in this topical way that Jesus has experienced all stages of our lives and therefore can understand all of our needs as we bring them to Him in our prayers.