Jenny’s letter 30th March
Special congratulations to Helene and Thea on their Confirmation this
Sunday 30th March at 11.00 am
Dear Friends,
Today is traditionally celebrated as Mothering Sunday within the established church, though it gets harder and harder to find cards that say anything other than Happy Mothers’ day.
This worldly focus on our earthly mothers brings both joy and deep sadness. Joy for mums with children who remember them on that day and for children with mums they feel gratitude for. But it can become a time of deep pain for those whose are separated from loved ones, those with mothers who have died or children who have died, those whose mothers did not conform to societiy’s expectations of motherhood, and those who longed to have children but could not. I think Mothers’ day misses the deeper significance of Mothering Sunday.
As many of you will know, in long times past, people returned to their Mother Church during Lent. It was a celebration known as Laetere Sunday, meaning Rejoice Sunday and was a time to relax the austerity in the midst of Lenten penitence (a bit like Gaudate Sunday on the 3rd of Advent).
The same Sunday is also known as refreshment Sunday, so in order to rejoice people gathered together to eat and drink. We eat Simnel Cake at Easter but it was often made for Mothering Sunday to be enjoyed when the family could gather together.
Giving thanks for Mother Church was at the centre of these celebrations. Sometimes it meant whole villages returning to the church that gave birth to their own parish church – an early form of church planting. For us in Bromborough, there would have been a visit to the cathedral who hold the patronage of St Barnabas. Later, when many were in service in the big houses of the land, the servants would return to their family for church with them, no doubt picking flowers on the way.
Mother church still has a very important role in our society. It can and should be a place for nurture and growth, a community working with our Father God to bring the very best out of those whom he has created.
As an adult I spent most of my life away from my own mother. I am grateful to the faith community for its nurture and care and also, for those inviduals I met who mothered me along the way.
In our congregation there are many with the most wonderful characteristics of nuture. They are not all married, not all people who have been earthly mothers or even women, we learn from scripture that men, too, can mother.
In Isaiah 66.13 God speaks through the prophet when he says, “As a mother comforts her son, so will I comfort you, and you will be consoled over Jerusalem.” This is amplified in Eucharistic prayer G which includes these words.
‘As a mother tenderly gathers her children
you [God} embraced a people as your own.
When they turned away and rebelled
your love remained steadfast.’
I say to those of you for whom this is a difficult day, you are made perfect by your Father in heaven. God sees and understands your pain and is alongside you in it. You are also loved, wanted, honoured, and appreciated, by your mother church.
Thanks to every one of you for the care you give to each other, to our community and to me.
This Mothering Sunday, let us truly rejoice with Helene and Thea as they affirm their faith in Confirmation and invite us to share in celebration with them.
May God Bless you each one of you today and always,
