Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day, Muttertag, La Festa della Mamma, Mothering Sunday, Fête des Mères, Día de las Madres... it goes by many different names. However you say it, the expression of love and appreciation is the same.

Motherhood has always been celebrated. In prehistoric tribes the mother Goddess was worshiped as the creator of life. Female mother goddess figures are found among the archeological remains of many cultures: Isis, the Queen of Heaven, in Egypt, Rhea, in ancient Greece, Hera and Cybele in ancient Rome. Most mothering festivals in early history were in the springtime, and celebrated the rebirth of the land and the beginning of the most fertile time of the year. These festivities honored the goddess in all women.

Our sacred scripture celebrates God as a mother from whom we draw comfort and strength. For example, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (Isaiah 49: 15) and “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66: 13). And our church has honored Mary, the Mother of God with many feasts throughout the liturgical cycle, including the traditional celebration during the month of May.

The modern version of Mother's Day, with families bringing flowers and gifts to their moms, can be traced back to seventeenth century England. Mothering Sunday was the fourth Sunday in Lent...a special day when all the strict rules about fasting and penance were put aside. The family gathered for a mid-Lenten feast with Mother as the special guest, who was given treats of cakes and wildflower bouquets. Mothering Sunday is still celebrated, though most now know it as Mother’s Day.

The history of Mother's Day in the U.S. is a bit different. Early attempts to have a day to honor mothers were mixed with woman's suffrage and peace movements, and were not very popular. Many women who were active with local groups held annual Mother's Day remembrances. Most resembled religious gatherings and were unlike the holiday we know today. Julia Ward Howe, for example, with women who’d lost sons in the Civil War, started a Mother’s Day celebration in Boston in 1870 to protest the carnage of war.

The person who is responsible for our celebrating Mother's Day as a formal holiday is Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948) of Philadelphia. After Anna's mother died, in May of 1905, she began a letter-writing campaign to a number of influential people promoting the idea of Mother's Day. She missed her mother and felt that children should appreciate their mothers more while they were still alive. Anna hoped that celebrating Mother's Day would strengthen respect, love and family bonds. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared that Mother’s Day should be celebrated as a national holiday on the second Sunday in May.

It didn't take very long for Mother's Day to change from a semi-religious occasion of prayers for peace, and appreciation of the work and love of mothers around the world, to an extravaganza of gifts, flowers, candy and dining out. While it may not have turned out to be the kind of holiday that countless women around the world imagined, it is a celebration of mothers.

And yet I know from personal experience that not everyone easily celebrates Mother’s Day. The mother-child relationship is both universal and complicated!! Not even Hallmark can provide a wide enough selection for some of us to find a Mother’s Day card we could give our mothers and still maintain our own sense of integrity.

Even though my childhood was not perfect, my relationship with my mother was always important to me, and it became even more so with each passing year. Like for some of you perhaps, healing did not come easily, because it required spending time with painful memories and assuming responsibility for my life now. For me, the benefits of healing far outweigh the costs that were involved.

I know now that my mother experienced many disappointments in life. As a child I was eager to please her, and there were times that I felt I didn’t do enough for my mother. There were times when it was hard to know if these were her expectations or mine. The healing of our relationship depended on forgiveness, and I was grateful for our growing closeness.

Forgiveness enabled me to accept my mother for who she was, and to love her for being the best mother she knew how to be given the limits of her understanding, knowledge and awareness. I am happy for having loved her while there was still time, and for trusting that she loved me as a daughter who did her best, given the limits of my understanding, knowledge and awareness.

We might wish we had never said hurtful things when our developmental changes collided with the mother-daughter or mother-son relationship. Facing those memories and forgiving ourselves is important. I can say that I have no regrets, no major ones, anyway. I'm happy that my mother died knowing that I loved her. I felt crazy around her half the time, as perhaps she did around me, but I loved her, and I am certain she felt it. And I know she loved me.

I give special thanks on Mother’s Day for my mother, who gave me life and laid the foundation for who I am today.

So, on this Mother’s Day, let’s take this opportunity to honor our Mothers, our Grandmothers and the other women in our lives who, by their nurturing, friendship and guidance, have helped us to develop into the adults that we have become.