Friday 20 March 2009
Look out - Mothering Sunday is coming up this weekend! Many of us will find ourselves caught up in a last minute scrabble for the least bashed of the daffodils left outside the shop, and the least tacky of the cards left behind by other more organised people.
Centuries ago, Mothering Sunday was a much less commercial affair. Once a year, people were expected to visit their nearest big church or cathedral, instead of the local parish church where they worshipped each week. That big church was known as a 'mother' church, and to have visited it was to have gone 'a-mothering'. A fringe benefit of this was that young men and women in service could take the opportunity to leave their duties for the day and visit their families at home. Sometimes they would go with a cake baked in the kitchens where they worked, or simply gather some flowers along the way. Many a mother looked forward to this special Sunday as an opportunity to see their children and to receive these simple gifts.
There is another tradition associated with this Sunday, too. Since it comes half way through the period of Lent, and since the appointed reading in many churches on that day is the story of feeding the 5000, permission was granted to relax the Lent fasting just for that day. As well as people getting time off to see their families, they were also allowed to eat some good food without a guilty conscience - and it came to be known as Refreshment Sunday.
I think we should restore the use of the name today. What a wonderful thing to have at least one Sunday in the year marked out as the day to refresh the people we love. It might be by presenting them with simple gifts - such as a cake baked or flowers picked. Then again, it might be by spending time with them instead of doing other things. Where distance separates, it might be a phone call or a letter to say that you care.
Celebrating Mothering Sunday in any church can be an emotional minefield. Some people have lost their mothers, and find the reminder too upsetting. Others would like to be mothers but can't be - and don't welcome the attention. It has to be handled very carefully. But refreshment Sunday? Now that would be another thing altogether. Everyone needs a little refreshment - and everyone can give it too.
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