Mothering Sunday in Great Britain is on Sunday, March 15, 2015.
Although we are increasingly adopting the American ‘Mother’s Day’, the original name has religious significance.
It derives from an ancient tradition of people travelling back to their ‘mother’ church on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, or Laetare Sunday. The ‘mother’ church was the one in which they had grown up. This tradition derives from the Epistle reading which states that the source of our joy should be in knowing that we are sons of God looking forward to redemption through the risen Christ. (The faithful celebrate Christ’s Resurrection at Easter, the greatest of all Church feasts.)
Because transport was difficult and travel lengthy — people journeyed home by horse, carriage or on foot — it was also a special occasion for their families. Those who made this trip were said to be going ‘a-mothering’. This carried a double meaning of pilgrimage to their church and a visit to their mother. The Canterbury Tales blog says the custom lasted for 300 years and ended sometime in the 19th century.
Simnel cake (pictured above), now served more often at Easter, was the traditional cake shared on this particular day.
In terms of church services, celebrants in the Catholic, Anglican/Episcopal and Lutheran churches often wear a rose-coloured vestment on this Sunday recalling Isaiah 63:2:
Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garments like theirs that tread in the winepress?
In the Middle Ages Pope Leo XIII compared the ‘sweet odour of Christ’ to a rose. A papal tradition, that of the Golden Rose, began as a result of this contemplation. The Pope commissions a goldsmith to craft a rose — one bloom or many — which is then given to a worthy Catholic for his or her service to the Church and to humanity. The Golden Rose is not distributed every year, although it has been given to a deserving recipient most years over the past Millennium.
Laetare — the first word of the traditional Introit — means ‘rejoice’, as in ‘Rejoice, Jerusalem’. It is a time to focus on the glory of the Risen Christ in hope and joy as well as contemplate His upcoming Passion.
I mentioned earlier the custom of returning to one’s mother church. After the service, the congregation went outdoors to gather around the church and ‘clip’ it — holding hands to embrace it.
My best wishes go to all British mothers on Laetare Sunday. May it be a well-deserved occasion of joy and happiness.
Churchmouse Campanologist 
12 comments
March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm
The Gospel of Barney
sadly most Church Holy Days have been bastardized the very word holiday is!
LikeLike
March 13, 2015 at 11:37 pm
churchmouse
Although I agree, it is doubtful that many churches would have enough people attending these days to join hands afterward in surrounding — ‘clipping’ — Mother Church.
I am grateful that the UK has kept Mothering Sunday on Laetare Sunday — a marvellous connection between the spiritual and the temporal — and not gone for a later date in May.
LikeLike
March 13, 2015 at 11:28 pm
ForThoseILove
Reblogged this on 4ThoseILove.
LikeLike
March 14, 2015 at 10:11 pm
churchmouse
Thank you, indeed, for the reblog, which is very much appreciated!
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 24, 2015 at 12:15 am
ForThoseILove
You’re welcome! Great thoughts.
LikeLike
March 24, 2015 at 12:22 am
churchmouse
Thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 14, 2015 at 6:26 pm
Stewart Cowan
I’m slow in replying sometimes and I always intended responding to your questions and points in this post (comments no longer accepted), about why I honour the Sabbath and reject the “Lord’s Day” (Sunday). Apologies for the delay.
This important issue also has a bearing on this post.
Do you observe the Sabbath on Saturday?
I observe the Sabbath on the seventh day, which I don’t call after a Pagan ‘god’.
There is no mention in scripture of such a seismic shift in ‘policy’ after the Crucifixion and as I wrote previously, “…the change by most Christians to first day worship, abandoning the seventh day Sabbath given by God and never repealed by Him, seems to be due to Constantine who, despite becoming a Christian (on the surface, at least), kept the first day as the Empire’s ‘Christian’ day of rest, just a few years after declaring that it was in honour of the “venerable” day of the sun.”
You quoted from another website. I don’t understand why so many Christians believe that because Christ rose on the first day of the week that the Sabbath day should be dispensed with.
You also wrote Same reason why Sunday was until recently considered the first day of the week.
You appear too willing to accept the precepts of men. Do you believe in a literal six day Creation? A literal worldwide flood leaving just eight humans alive? A literal dispersion of peoples from Babel? Or do you believe that false ideas of man supersede God’s word? Science, finally catching up via genetics, has evidence of all three events involved in the true history of mankind, not the version based on Darwin’s overactive imagination.
Now we come to this post and the issue of concern: Should Christians Celebrate Mother’s Day?.
You can read about the apparent Pagan roots and the injection of reality from Matthew.
The piece continues.
“It is a sad fact that most professing believers will refuse to hear or consider the truth contained herein. They will complain that their “Christian” values are under attack in this nation, and yet will observe Pagan inspired celebrations which were foisted upon them by the same nation that works to their destruction. They reject the knowledge of God and his feast days and embrace the practices of the heathen. If God’s people forget his law, is it also not right that he should forget them?”
Hosea 4:6:
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”
LikeLike
March 14, 2015 at 10:01 pm
churchmouse
I am sorry you do not count Laetare Sunday as being part of the Church’s heritage in Britain. Was it a Scottish or Welsh tradition or not?
To have visited one’s ‘mother’ — childhood — church on that day from across the country must have been a huge undertaking with logistics and expense to have been incurred at a time when transport and income were at a minimum.
Sunday was considered the first day of the week and the Lord’s Day because it was the day of His resurrection. It happened, during His era in the Roman Empire, to have been celebrated on Sun Day, the day of the feast of the Sun. More to come on this in the days ahead. The reason why Sunday — the Lord’s Day — is no longer considered the first day of the week is that fewer people believe in our Lord and his resurrection from the dead. This all started in the 1980s: one must begin with the first day of the working week.
It would help me if you told me what denomination you were affiliated with. I would then be able to enter into greater dialogue with you. As it is, it sounds as if you might have been reading too many notional ‘Christian’ publications which are nothing of the sort.
Unfortunately, at this point, I am unable to enter into more of a meaningful discussion.
I do close all comments after a fortnight. Too few people have kept threads going and it seems pointless.
LikeLike
March 15, 2015 at 11:59 am
Stewart Cowan
I am not of any denomination, as I think they (all the ones I have encountered) have lost the Way.
I am sorry you do not count Laetare Sunday…
It depends on whether it is yet another of our traditions which is in essence Pagan.
You say that the week now starts on the first day of the working week.
The country is far more secular, but it doesn’t change the truth; it distorts it (like ‘gay marriage’). When secularists/humanists insist on removing religion from schools and politics, it’s only Christianity they mean; the religion is still there in their evolution theory.
Which brings me back to whether you believe scripture or the evolutionists, who say that humans – and the Son of God – are descended from “ape-like ancestors”.
Another issue is that a new day begins at sunset, not midnight. Like there being no scripture instructing us to chisel off the fourth Commandment, there is none to say that a day begins at midnight, yet almost every Christian operates this way.
On comments: I keep mine open indefinitely, as occasionally people comment on a post years old.
LikeLike
March 15, 2015 at 9:58 pm
churchmouse
Fine, Stuart, you run your blog in the way you wish to. I also remember when it lay fallow for quite a few months a few years ago to the point where I stopped reading it. I could similarly advise you to post more consistently. However, your site policy is yours. Mine is mine.
Re Sabbath times, as was explained from a John MacArthur sermon excerpt in my study of the passage in Luke regarding the Last Supper (MacArthur’s words below):
‘Study Josephus. Study the Mishnah, the codification of Jewish law and other historical sources. You find that the Jews in the north and the Jewish people in the south, the Galileans say as opposed to the Judeans, had different ways of calculating their days. These chronological aspects have been a wonderful study in anybody’s – anybody who makes an effort to studying this in the New Testament is greatly enriched by it. But in the north, they calculated days from sunrise to sunrise – sunrise to sunrise. That was a day. Whereas in the south, they calculated the day from sunset to sunset. So that’s a very clear distinction. In Galilee, where Jesus and all the disciples except Judas, had grown up, they calculated days from sunrise to sunrise. So the fourteenth of Nissan was sunrise on Thursday to sunrise on Friday. That puts the Passover Thursday night. For the Jews in the south, it was sunset to sunset, so that puts it in late Friday for the southern Jews. Same day calculated two different ways. And that worked well for the Jews.’
I have never, ever said or intimated that the Son of God descended from ‘ape-like ancestors’. Perhaps you are confusing this site with someone else’s. I have always said that our Lord is all human and all divine, in line with Church doctrine of whatever true denomination.
I never said that I consider the first day of the week to be Monday. The first day for me, carrying over from my childhood and the calendars then, is Sunday, the Lord’s Day. I did say that this changed over time for secularists or those weak in the faith who consider it to be Monday because that is their first working day of the week. Note the difference in calendars between the 1970s and 1990s to the present day. Fewer begin on Sunday; it’s generally Monday.
There is little point in our debating ‘pagan’ days and traditions here. Clearly, you have made your mind up. I am sorry that you have so little time or thought for a Sunday that comes at the midpoint in Lent which honours 1) Christ, 2) His holy Bride the Church, 3) mothers and 4) families.
I am sorry that you find yourself in a small non-demonination of a select few which feels bounden to tell the rest of us how to practise centuries-old Christianity.
Whilst you’re enjoying your notionally Christian websites, it might be advisable to read Church history as well as Lutheran and Reformed confessions of faith and the 39 Articles of Religion.
Your hostility is bemusing, especially when you have rarely commented here. I doubt how many of my posts you actually read. In which case, why the issue? Surely, as a Christian, you know that the world has many demoninations.
Re an introduction to early Church history and liturgy — as well as the reason for Sunday:
I’ve never had any issue with you, even though I do not agree with all that you say. However, it is your prerogative to say it.
Finally, your comments are offensive to British mothers who are having a good weekend and a pleasant day.
Prayers are being sent your way for a good week ahead in His almighty grace.
LikeLike
March 27, 2015 at 12:05 am
Stewart Cowan
“I am sorry that you find yourself in a small non-demonination of a select few which feels bounden to tell the rest of us how to practise centuries-old Christianity.”
Ah, “centuries old”. I go back 2,000 years and beyond. The truth is in scripture and clearly says that a day is sunset to sunset. There is no mention of Sunday observance or to ditch the Sabbath or that Christ was born on the (equivalent of ) 25th December.
“Whilst you’re enjoying your notionally Christian websites, it might be advisable to read Church history as well as Lutheran and Reformed confessions of faith and the 39 Articles of Religion.”
I don’t have time to keep my blog up to date. It is not ‘notionally’ Christian. It is a political blog which is written by a Christian. It was never designed for sermons, church history, theology…
“Your hostility is bemusing, especially when you have rarely commented here. I doubt how many of my posts you actually read. In which case, why the issue? Surely, as a Christian, you know that the world has many demoninations.”
Not sure how you think I’m hostile. Sorry if you get that impression. I’m hostile towards the Paganism in ‘Christianity’ (though not hostile towards Pagans, naturally).
“Surely, as a Christian, you know that the world has many demoninations. ”
God is not the author of confusion.
LikeLike
March 27, 2015 at 12:06 am
churchmouse
Thanks, Stewart.
LikeLike