Why Mothering Sunday?

People often ask "is Mothering Sunday just another name for Mother's Day?" There are many answers to that question as traditions in church develop over time, but let me give an English and Anglican answer.

Let me take back you back quite some time to England in the 1800s. If that's too far, then imagine Downton Abbey or Upstairs Downstairs. There were many people at that time who worked as domestic servants, and so worked on a Sunday morning. They were of course allowed to go to church on the Sunday afternoon or evening, locally to where they worked. As many domestic servants lived in, this could often be many miles (and therefore many hours walk) from their families and the churches which they had attended as a child.

Therefore, one Sunday a year they were allowed to return to the church where their family was, and where they had been nurtured in the faith. For many of them (in the days before free education) the church would also have been the place where they learnt to read and write. It was the place of nurture for them back then, in so many different ways. This special day was called Mothering Sunday, the day when you returned to your mother church, or put differently, returned to the church that had birthed you and given you life.

Over the years, as working habits changed and church attendance waned, the focus changed to our earthly mothers and those who brought us into this world. Mothering Sunday became Mother's Day, something that no longer had any ties to the church or Christian Faith. Yet as Christians we are also "born again to a new and living hope through Jesus" (1 Peter 1: 3), so Mothering Sunday reminds us of this, and reminds us that it is good to remember and give thanks for our second birth.

So take some time to give thanks to the Lord for those who have nurtured you in the faith, whether in Sunday School, Youth Group or home group. If you came to faith as an adult, give thanks for the person that led you to Jesus, and if you are still in touch why not drop them a line of thanks as well? What is especially good to do this day, as most of us here grew up elsewhere, is to pray for our churches back home, for those who are nurturing both young and old, that they may continue to be faithful and fruitful for many years to come.