Mylee.com.au - Mothering Sunday.

Home :: Mothering Sunday.
Mothering Sunday.
	Add to Favourite View Shopping List

15-05-2006 14:22:00

To honour and express love and appreciation for our Mothers is the reason for the second Sunday of May every year.

Interestingly, the earliest known tributes to mothers date back to the annual spring festival the Ancient Greeks dedicated to the great goddess Rhea, wife of Cronus and mother of the Olympians. These celebrations were mirrored in the offerings ancient Romans made to their Great Mother Goddess, Cybele. Ceremonies in her honour began some 250 years before the birth of Christ. This Roman religious celebration, known as Hilaria Matris Deum, lasted for three days – from March 22 to 25, and not in the month of May. In the British Isles and Celtic Europe, the goddess Brigid, and later her successor St. Brigid, were honoured with a spring Mother's Day, connected with the first milk of the ewes.

In later times, Christians celebrated this festival on the fourth Sunday in Lent, in honour of Mary, mother of Jesus. During the 1600's England began to celebrate a day called ‘Mothering Sunday’ on the fourth Sunday in Lent. Originally, it was a time for visiting one's 'mother church' – the church in the town where one hailed from, and people would travel back home to attend – but gradually came to be a day for honouring one's mother and giving her gifts. Thus, on Mothering Sunday young apprentices and servants returned home, bringing their mothers small gifts and keepsakes or a "mothering cake".

In the United States , Mother's Day started nearly 150 years ago, when Anna Jarvis, an Appalachian homemaker, organized a day to raise awareness of poor health conditions in her community, a cause she believed would be best advocated by mothers. She called it "Mother's Work Day."

In 1905 when Anna Jarvis died, her daughter, also named Anna, began a campaign to memorialize the life work of her mother. Legend has it that young Anna remembered a Sunday school lesson that her mother gave in which she said, "I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother's day. There are many days for men, but none for mothers."

Anna began to lobby prominent businessmen like John Wannamaker, and politicians including Presidents Taft and Roosevelt to support her campaign to create a special day to honor mothers. At one of the first services organized to celebrate Anna's mother in 1908, at her church in West Virginia , Anna handed out her mother's favorite flower, the white carnation. Five years later, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution calling for officials of the federal government to wear white carnations on Mother's Day. In 1914 Anna's hard work paid off when Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing Mother's Day as a national holiday.

Today, people observe Mother's Day by attending church, writing letters to their mothers, sending cards, presents, and flowers. In fact, the second Sunday of May has become the most popular day of the year to dine out, and telephone lines record their highest traffic!

At Mylee, Jewellery & Gifts, we hope all mothers out there, had a beautiful smile on their faces on Sunday, May 14 of this year, as they got to spend time with all their sons and daughters...

Heidi's Messages